Looking back at the first 60+ episodes of This Is CDR

Toby Bryce reflects on launching and growing an event series to contextualize CDR for policy, and highlights ten episodes that focus on systems-level impact.

This is a guest post by Toby Bryce. Toby works on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) policy advocacy for OpenAir, an all-volunteer organization dedicated to advancing carbon removal. Toby is also active in the CDR sector as an independent advisor to companies and organizations on commercialization, market development, and policy. This Is CDR is an online event series presented by OpenAir to contextualize long-duration CDR for policymakers. In this post, Toby reflects on This Is CDR’s first 18 months, and highlights ten episodes that take a systems-level view of the sector.

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When some fellow OpenAir volunteers and I launched This Is CDR in August 2021 – with an excellent introduction to CDR with Dr. Evvan Morton – we didn’t know where the project would lead. We wanted to create a communications channel to contextualize carbon removal (CDR) for policymakers by:

• disambiguating CDR from carbon capture; 

• illustrating that CDR is comprised of multiple distinct pathways, that combine nature and engineering to varying degrees, and not just giant machines that suck CO2 from the atmosphere; and 

• emphasizing the critical importance of equity and environmental justice as we seek to scale deployment of this essential climate solution. 

We envisioned a format that moved beyond the ubiquitous panel discussion to go deep with CDR practitioners, policy experts, and scientists, to hear what they are working on, and their answers to targeted questions from both OpenAir and a diverse and enthusiastic audience.  

None of us had attempted to produce this kind of programming on a sustained basis, and we didn’t know if we could pull it off. We didn’t know if we could build an audience. We didn’t know if we would be able to book high-quality presenters for more than a few episodes. We started and remain pretty lo-fi, and have survived our share of glitches, but eighteen months, sixty-plus episodes, and tens of thousands of views later, we’ve overcome our initial doubts. This is thanks to the incredible guests who have shared their time and expertise, our growing and ever-curious audience, the program’s fantastic co-host Megha Raghavan, and the rotating team of OpenAir volunteers who have contributed on- and off-camera to make This Is CDR a success.

When Na’im invited me to contribute a guest post to The Carbon Curve to reflect on the program’s first sixty episodes, I was of course honored and jumped at the opportunity. We initially messaged back and forth about a “top-ten” list, but quickly realized that, with so many excellent presenters, it would be impossible to narrow any list down to ten, even twenty CDR companies. So we decided to take a step back and look at the numbers. Of the now 62 episodes, about two thirds are presentations from CDR practitioners – evenly broken out by pathway between direct air capture (DAC), mineralization, biomass-based carbon removal and storage (BiCRS), and ocean-based carbon removal. I can’t claim that this even split was 100% planned and intentional, but it’s cool that it worked out that way.

The rest of the episodes, we realized, take a more systems-level view of CDR – which is very much what Na’im has been so successfully doing with The Carbon Curve. Thus we decided that a good way to look back at This Is CDR’s first eighteen months would be to highlight ten of these episodes from systems-level thinkers on scaling up CDR.

Policy:

• Episode 54 Dr. Jennifer Wilcox (Nov 2022) – Insightful update from Dr. Wilcox on the state of CDR in the U.S. covering the Department of Energy’s Carbon Negative Shot program, DAC Hubs, 45Q, MRV, and more. 

• Episode 14 Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act (Nov 2021) – Overview of OpenAir’s state-level CDR procurement policy framework, which was recently introduced in Massachusetts as SD.371.

Environmental Justice:

• Episode 19 Dr. Holly Jean Buck (Jan 2022) – Important discussion with Dr. Buck of her book Ending Fossil Fuels, and how we can center equity and environmental justice as we seek to scale long-duration CDR.

• Episode 53 Just and Equitable DAC Hubs (Nov 2022) – Celina Scott-Buechler of Data for Progress and NWF’s Dr. Simone Stewart discuss their vital work on “Charting a Course to Just DAC Hubs.”

Measurement, Reporting, and Verification:

• Episode 49 MRV for Ocean-Based CDR (Sept 2022) – Amazingly detailed presentation from NOAA’s Dr. Jessica Cross on the complexity, challenge, and opportunity of MRV for ocean-based CDR.

Techno-Economics and Scaling:

• Episode 35 Scaling Up CDR: Lessons from Solar (May 2022) – Dr. Greg Nemet discusses his seminal research into How Solar Got Cheap and how these learnings from solar can help us scale CDR even faster.

Activist Market Development:

• Episode 18 DAC+Concrete (Jan 2022) – Na’im joins This Is CDR with OpenAir Co-Founder Chris Neidl to present their pioneering work on the integration of DAC + concrete for CDR – which achieved it’s FOAK deployment just last week by Heirloom and CarbonCure!

• Episode 52 The 4 Corners Carbon Coalition (Oct 2022) – Launch announcement for the 4CCC, an innovative local government CDR procurement program that OpenAir helped catalyze.

Creating and Shaping the CDR Market:

• Episode 61 Buying Carbon Removal, Explained (Jan 2023) – Great presentation from Shopify Head of Sustainability Stacy Kauk of the company’s recently published buying guide for long-duration CDR.

• Episode 62 CDR.fyi (Feb 2023) – Wide-ranging discussion with the ever-insightful Robert Hoglund of CDR.fyi’s 2022 Year-in-Review, and what we can expect and hope for CDR in 2023.

There is more to come from This Is CDR in 2023. Next week we are excited to host Cornell University’s Dr. Greeshma Gadikota, who will present her DAC-to-carbonates startup and recent Frontier CDR purchase Carbon To Stone, and we’ll be announcing additional episodes for March and beyond soon via OpenAir’s Twitter. As for OpenAir, if you’re interested in getting involved in any of our other missions to advance CDR – or starting a new mission of your own – we’d love to have you join us! 

About the authors:

Toby Bryce works on CDR policy advocacy for OpenAir, an all-volunteer organization dedicated to advancing carbon removal. Toby is also active in the CDR sector as an independent advisor to companies and organizations on commercialization, market development, and policy.

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 carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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