Debating Durability and the 1000 Year Threshold - Shannon Smith, Chestnut Carbon

Listen to the recorded session, Nature: In Demand and on the Rise, Globally w/ New Scientist, The Next 150 and Chestnut Carbon here.

False Demarcation

On stage quote: I think it’s a false demarcation. As the carbon markets have developed, this idea that something is nature based versus technology or engineered is really false and it’s much more of a continuum. [00:01:50 - 00:02:03 on session recording. Listen here]

Follow up response: The carbon market has set up a false demarcation between nature and “engineered” solutions. Within removal alternatives we see opposite ends of the spectrum for “nature-based” and “engineered” solutions, with trees (nature’s 400-million-year-old carbon-sequestering marvel) at one end and Direct Air Capture (DAC) (energy utilized to blow air through a filtration system) at the other.  But new innovations leveraging technology to accelerate natural carbon capture processes shouldn’t be forced into one “bucket” or another.  Enhanced rock weathering is exactly that - speeding up nature’s process of capturing carbon in rocks. Biochar converts biomass into carbon-rich charcoal using an oxygen-starved environment. These and other capture techniques sit squarely at the intersection of nature and technology, on a continuum between the two, and pigeon-holing them into one category or another unnecessarily complicates the buyer purchase process.  Rather than simply optimizing their purchases across a variety of solutions, they’re stuck trying to figure out what’s the right ratio between the “two types’, or whether to put biochar into their allocation of nature or engineered.  Most corporate sustainability teams are small and resource-constrained – let’s make it easier for them.

The Wave of the Future

On stage quote: There is going to be increasing adoption of a portfolio effect and nature will continue to be at the front end of the cost curve. [00:07:28 - 00:07:37 Listen here]

Follow up response: In the carbon removal markets today, nature-based solutions (NBS) are available at scale, and high-quality NBS offsets are still priced well under $100. While some technology developers are starting to scale their production volumes, there are still very limited supplies of true removal offsets, particularly fully engineered solutions like DAC, and all of these credits cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars a ton.  In the near-to-medium term, NBS will continue to sit comfortably at the front of the offset cost curve and serve as a more accessible product option. In a classic asset allocation framework, most companies seeking to offset carbon emissions are electing to build carbon portfolios with a number of different suppliers.  They will find that building a portfolio heavily weighted with nature-based removal in the near-to-medium term is cost-effective with volumes available to enable meaningful progress towards net zero goals.

A Thousand Year Durability

On stage quote: I think when this concept first came out of a durability requirement of a 1000 years, it was arbitrary and I think since then the problem is getting worse before our eyes. The temperatures, the record heat, unusual weather patterns we are seeing really accelerating climate impact and I think people are looking around and knowing that we need to do something quickly. Someone on the former panel said we are not doing nearly enough so this idea that you are going to hold carbon capture project or a technology solution to a 1000 year threshold is unrealistic right now. [00:14:54 - 00:15:41 Listen here]

Follow up response: Nature is perfectly equipped and proven to remove and store atmospheric carbon and should be credited as such. Organizations like Stripe guiding companies to buy only credits with 1000+ year sequestration will cripple the nascent offset market at a time when we need to finance every form of durable carbon capture available. We continue to experience extreme weather and record heat waves across the globe while companies and countries are issuing warnings they will miss 2030 carbon reduction targets. We don’t have a 1,000 year problem - we have a modern-day emergency. The volume capacity for carbon removal by technologies promising 1,000-year capture is irrelevant today. Nature-based removals that sequester carbon in trees, oceans and other natural sinks for 50-100+ years can capture meaningful volumes of climate-heating carbon dioxide now, buying us valuable time to develop the new technologies of the future.

Measure and Track

On stage quote: We’re bringing technology to the way we measure and track our tree growth which of course is how we measure our carbon sequestration. [00:21:12 - 00:21:20 Listen here]

Follow up response: A challenge to scaling forest-based carbon removal solutions has been inventory capture; that is, measuring a large enough sample of the forest to effectively calculate tree biomass and carbon stocks. These inventory measurements serve as the basis of carbon stock growth models and long-term carbon removal projections, and traditionally cost hundreds of dollars per plot to collect.

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