Mike Kelland, CEO of Planetary, on the enormous potential of ocean-based carbon removal

Episode 16 of The Carbon Curve is with Mike Kelland, CEO and Co-Founder of Planetary.

This episode is sponsored by Carbonfuture.

Carbonfuture is an end-to-end platform for companies that want to participate in removing carbon from the atmosphere. Unlike conventional marketplaces, Carbonfuture’s monitoring, reporting, and verification platform solves carbon credit uncertainty for buyers like Microsoft and SwissRe while Carbonfuture’s support helps scale the world’s most promising carbon removal ventures for real climate impact.

According to ocean climate NGO, Ocean Visions, the ocean is under threat from overfishing, plastic pollution, and of course climate change. But the organization thinks - if managed responsibly - the opportunity to harness the power of the ocean to sequester and store CO2 is massive compared to terrestrial methods.

That’s why researchers are exploring the carbon removal (or CDR) potential of this vast resource that covers 70% of our planet’s surface. But ocean-based CDR methods are unique and pretty complex ranging from ocean alkalinity enhancement to sinking seaweed. In addition, the ocean is a dynamic environment: it’s tricky to measure the quantity of CO2 removed, it’s unclear what impact different ocean-based CDR methods will have on ecosystems, and figuring out the policies and regulations to responsibly pilot, test, and eventually scale up the best solutions is really difficult.

This is a field within carbon removal that’s gaining a lot of traction precisely because there’s so much to learn about what responsible and effective ocean-based CDR looks like. So today, I’m speaking to Mike Kelland, Co-Founder and CEO of Planetary, committed to enhancing the ocean’s potential as a carbon sink while addressing ocean health in the process.

In this episode, Na’im and Mike discuss:

• Planetary’s origin story and their ocean-based CDR method

• Why the ocean is an important medium for CDR

• Some of the risks associated with ocean-based CDR and how to mitigate them

• How to get measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) right with ocean-based CDR methods

• Planetary’s Code of Conduct

• What effective engagement of coastal communities and supportive policies and regulations look like

• A 10-year vision of success in scaling up ocean-based CDR methods

Relevant links:

• Planetary’s website

• Planetary’s Science and Technology Code of Conduct

• Recent coverage of Planetary’s work on the TODAY Show (Twitter)

• Learn about ocean-based CDR at Ocean Visions

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app or subscribe via The Carbon Curve newsletter here. If you’d like to get in touch with Na’im, you can reach out via Twitter and LinkedIn.

Na’im Merchant, Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Curve, is an advisor and thought partner to start-ups, policy groups, and research organizations on scaling up climate technologies to meet the monumental challenge of removing billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. Every week, Na’im will release a short interview with individuals advancing bold new ideas and taking a collective action approach to scaling up carbon removal.