Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)

From another community: Here is a Roadmap for Impact of Biotechnology in CDR! Please comment inline.

Webinar on June 28. Register here.

As we devise systems of CO2 removal over the next decades, a key focus is how to create these systems to further the goal of social justice. Although big oil companies would like to see their infrastructure converted to greener, but still private and shareholder-benefiting; CDR projects offer many opportunities to directly improve the lives of local and under-served populations. When we sequester carbon in soil, that can benefit local farmers - by improving their land AND being a source of negative-emission revenue. As coastal areas flood and return to marine habitats, they can become public recreation and fishery support.

when we're talking about carbon dioxide in the air, the idea that we might mean something different between capturing it and removing it seems unintuitive. And yet we have two quite different concepts in circulation these days. This community is about CDR which is carbon dioxide removal (from the air), but there is also CCS - carbon capture and storage, and a new term gaining currency CCUS - carbon capture, utilization and storage. In this context, capture means removing CO2 from a point source emission, rather than from the mixed atmosphere. The CO2 in a point source is much more concentrated, so different technologies apply. You don't go to a orthodontics conference to present your work on new contact lenses - so don't start talking about CCS here in the CDR community; we'll just look at you funny.