A strange technology has emerged as a frontrunner in the pursuit of net zero. But this form of carbon capture, called enhanced rock weathering (or ERW for short), still requires innovation — and government oversight.
Society has a flair for accepting new technologies, often driven by a mix of vanity, curiosity and a desire to stay ahead of the curve. Whether it's being the first to own the latest device or pioneering green initiatives like electric vehicle charging ports, early adopters are paving the way for progress despite the initial hurdles of high costs and poor implementation.
From the early days of the Internet to the development of flat-panel televisions, these early steps pave the way for transformative change.
Carbon capture technology is no exception. Major companies like Microsoft, Google and Meta have been early champions of climate restoration technologies and are even joining forces in collaborations like this Frontier Climate Consortia. But unlike a trendy gadget, carbon capture is key to the survival of our species.
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Unfortunately, the unbridled growth of the The carbon credit market has led to widespread corruption and unethical practices. Cases of fraudulent tree planting programs and dubious land deals are undermining public trust in carbon capture initiatives.
It is not enough to rely solely on corporate initiatives: government intervention is essential to legitimize carbon markets and drive widespread adoption of this crucial technology.
Carbon dioxide removal certification
Enter the EU (February 2024), with a groundbreaking initiative to create a certification framework for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies. This regulatory push aims to instill confidence in carbon capture solutions and pave the way for mainstream acceptance and adoption. The process is bureaucratic, but a necessary step to align policy with climate goals.
I am the CEO and founder of FabricNano, a Bioproduction company based in the UK which enables the sustainable production of products using enzyme-based biocatalysts. We use nature to solve some of humanity's biggest problems – so we're naturally curious about the latest methods being used to reduce carbon emissions in supply chains.
But we are also curious about carbon sequestration technologies that have already emerged from the oil-intensive industrialization of the last two centuries. Particularly fascinating is one method of carbon capture that is becoming increasingly important: Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW). ERW, also known as soil-based enhanced weathering, uses the natural process of rock weathering to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
How does improved rock weathering work?
Like all the most charismatic technologies, it's joyfully strange – just like tapping a finger on a screen used to be. Find a large piece of land, such as a farm or field. Sprinkle a welcoming blanket of magical mineral dust over the top. Then rainwater falls.
This rainwater contains atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), the currency of climate change, which binds to the water molecule (H2O) and forms a molecule called carbonic acid (CH2O3). When this acid encounters rock of a certain type – typically basalt or other silicate rock – this acid is further mineralized into stable carbonate, which is stored in the ground or washed out into the sea.
You know carbonates: They're ubiquitous both in your daily life and in the oceans, with sodium carbonate (NaCH2O3) more commonly known as baking soda and calcium carbonate (CaCH2O3) known as chalk.
The carbonate molecules are good for the oceans, and that's where these molecules end up. They help reverse the deacidification of the ocean before the carbonate molecules sediment to the seafloor, where they slowly become rocks such as limestone or coral and crustacean shells.
As these molecules travel to the oceans, they increase the total carbon in the soil. This improves the overall health of the soil microbiome and stabilizes the pH against more aggressive farming techniques – both useful for feeding an ever-growing human population.
The world has a lot of land and a lot of silicate rock. In the UK alone there are 43 million acres that both benefit and could benefit from the adoption of this technology; enough land to sequester 86 million tons of CO2. And in the UK, billions of tonnes of silicate rock material and other mine tailings are lying around as waste. This stuff is in abundance: silicate rocks make up 90% of the Earth's crust.
Why is ERW technology key to global carbon capture?
The potential of ERW is immense, providing a sustainable and scalable approach to carbon removal around the world. However, nature is smart but slow – and ERW's mission is to accelerate what nature already does best so that we can help restore a stable climate on planet Earth.
Rock weathering in nature is far too slow to keep up with the exponential rate of human industrial activity and the associated carbon emissions. The ERW “improvement” results from an attempt to deposit silicate material on vast tracts of land in the hopes of accelerating rock weathering.
But there's a catch: the typical rock that can be sustainably mined for this technology has a diameter that falls in the particle size distribution (PSD) of 1-4 mm, and can take more than 20 years to weather meaningfully is.
We just don't have that much time – and so creating a usable version of ERW requires two things. Firstly, the enormous deposition of silicate material on land and secondly, the formation of ultrafine rock dust of less than 0.1 mm. The first is a logistical challenge that involves transporting tons of rock to nearby fields. The more quarries and fields, the better for optimizing truck routes.
We still need to solve the problem of ultrafine rock dust, as this rock is only available in small quantities in certain mines and quarries around the world. If you can't find the magic rock dust, create it – so companies grind regular quarry rock into smaller stones less than 0.1 millimeters in diameter, which uses energy, complicates logistics and emits carbon, which has a negative impact on the Life cycle analysis of the whole impacts carbon capture efforts.
The emerging market for ERW emission certificates
And so the crucial error reveals itself. We have the global solution to carbon capture – and it works! But these ultrafine rock dust inputs are so difficult to obtain that we are stuck in the middle phase of research. We need new technologies to solve the problem of rock particle size in ERW.
Fortunately, this won't stop ERW from becoming the leading carbon capture technology of the decade. The technology contains enough ultrafine rock dust and evidence that Microsoft has signed contracts with companies involved in ERW logistics and measurement – including Lithos Carbon in the US and UNDO in the UK.
Microsoft is the primary buyer and signs contracts to purchase the CO2 credits generated by ERW, which will save over 100,000 tons of CO2 this year alone. The rare ultrafine rock dust is used for all carbon sequestration, but with ERW we are nowhere near the removal of 1 million tons of carbon and even further to the limit of 1 GT.
Despite the remaining rock dust hurdles, key players in the Frontier Climate consortia are investing more in ERW projects than any other carbon capture technology as they and we begin to recognize the long-term potential of simply taking the steps nature has already taken Carbon sequestration accelerates carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and thus stabilizes the climate.
Prioritizing ERW is key to achieving 2050 net zero targets
Although ERW has its shortcomings, its effectiveness at carbon capture is undeniable. As governments and businesses increasingly prioritize carbon neutrality, ERW is poised to play a critical role in achieving our climate goals. The current state of technology isn't perfect – no early innovation really is – so skepticism still lurks. But essentially it is.
Among many other “serious” candidates, from giant vacuum cleaners to biomass burial, this is the solution. To meet the daunting challenge of global carbon reduction, we must accelerate the pace of innovation and overcome scalability issues for ERW. That's the story.
As a biotechnology company, FabricNano hopes that ERW will be quickly recognized by the EU and other governments as a leading technology that requires explicit protocols and oversight, leading to corresponding quality assurance in carbon markets.
While carbon capture as a class of technology has been controversial and flawed in the past, it is no longer a joke. Governments around the world have begun to reckon with the fact that net zero targets for 2050 have no chance without large reductions in emissions combined with carbon capture.
To move forward as quickly as possible, the EU and others must carefully and quickly select leading carbon capture technologies and begin building oversight into protocols to ensure quality. Only then will the carbon market truly evolve from vanity and curiosity to mainstream adoption of our new way of life.
ERW is one of many approaches that the European Council would like to regulate and thus contribute to widespread acceptance. The process has already begun. And if we prioritize ERW, we could see carbon-sequestering fields around the world that truly address climate change within the decade.
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