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What is ZeroEx?
ZeroEx has a unique mission. Could you share what inspired you to start this journey and how the company evolved from its original vision to where it is today?
Tony Oehm - In the early days of the company our team initially focused on carbon emissions accounting which lead to first touch-points with different carbon offsetting mechanisms. By deep diving into several methodologies we were shocked by the severe quality & transparency issue that the market is currently facing. We told ourselves that if we want to do it right we have to do it ourselves and hence launched our first pilots focusing on 3 criteria:
1. It has to be removal because it is measurable
2. If it is removal it has to be permanent
3. It has to be a solution that can be launched in front of our doorstep in Germany to ensure that we are able to personally meet every stakeholder and ensure full transparency along the value chain
Through initial research we were especially intrigued by ERW because of the positioning at the intersection between high permanence removal and a multitude of co-benefits combined with the fact that the infrastructure for large scale projects is already existing and just waiting to remove carbon.
At one point in early 2023 one of my working students approached me with “hey Tony, this ERW you are always reading about … I am already doing it” – in fact he grew up on a small organic farm which already has been using rock powder as a fertilizer for years – now equipped with a farmer, rock and field there was no excuse left not to jump right into it.
CDR Innovation
You’re based in Germany, a country with some of the strictest rules and regulations and highest standards for ERW and CDR in the EU. How does this differentiate you from your competitors?
Tony Oehm – The effectiveness of the ERW process is primarily dependent on climate factors which are in fact not optimal in Germany as we are unfortunately not in a tropical climate zone – still we see starting in Germany as a advantage as this allows us to create the perfect blueprint of a high-quality ERW project.
By starting within one of the strictest regulatory frameworks for soil & water protection we can make sure that our carbon removal activities go hand-in-hand with environmental protection and that our approach will be valid in any region world-wide without any further adaptation. Focusing on maximum environmental compliance led us to focus heavily on feedstock exploration to identify the best feedstocks combining a minimum of heavy-metals with a maximum of CDR potential – for this we analysed over 100+ quarries in Germany, ensuring that the best rock finds the best field, building up knowledge that can be applied internationally.
Reducing costs of MRV
You’re currently working on the development of a novel MRV device that can be buried underground, which will help reduce the cost of ERW by up to 60%. Please can you share more about this exciting announcement?
Tony Oehm – I am convinced that carbon removal has to be cost-effective to reach the scale that is needed to fulfil international climate goals. ERW is already an incredibly scalable solution as the infrastructure for mining/transport/spreading of the rock is already present and can be optimized quite easily. The challenge that most companies in the sector are facing are high measurement costs that exceed operational costs in most cases, even in a high-price environment like Germany.
Methods that are currently broadly applied are only able to either detect the dissolution of feedstock, omitting several processes that are important to accurately assess the carbon removed, or only provide single point-in-time signals for cation concentration in porewater, which drives up costs as these measurements have to be conducted not only over the full project lifetime, but also several times within one year.
Our method can be imagined like a sponge adsorbing all relevant cations & anions released from the weathering process over the duration of a full year, providing us with a direct, time-integrated signal for carbon removed with a single analysis per year – essentially combining the simplicity of yearly soil sampling with the higher relevance of aqueous phase measurements.
We aim to publish the results from our extensive field & mesocosm trials in 2025 to make the method accessible to a broader range of ERW project developers.
CDR challenges
What is the biggest challenge you see facing the CDR and ERW industry in the next 5-10 years?
Tony Oehm – As of today, CDR and especially ERW are niche solutions in a broad range of climate change mitigation technologies. Most companies still have the misconception that removing carbon is something that should be tackled as soon the majority of emissions have already been reduced while in contrast CDR has to be gradually scaled over the coming years to ensure that the necessary supplies are there when they are needed.
To change this perspective CDR needs to get a larger platform which can only be achieved with regulatory backing in all relevant target markets, which is currently lacking – in my opinion frameworks like the EU CRCF will to mature the market over the coming years and give buyers the stamp of approval necessary to justify investments in larger volumes.
If CDR can be established as a major pillar in ESG strategies through this I am confident that the industry will advance to a large scale sooner than we expect.
