Carbon Markets Roundup - December 3
In this newsletter
News from Governments
Measuring carbon removed through Enhanced Rock Weathering
Carbon Removal
News from Governments
The European Council and European Parliament have agreed to postpone the enforcement of the EU Deforestation Regulation by 1 year. The regulation is supposed to come into effect from December 30, 2024, but will now be effective from December 30, 2025. The regulation requires all stakeholders to ensure that products - like those made from cattle, wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee, rubber - sold in the EU or exported from the EU are deforestation-free.
(November 28) Canada's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, has announced $12.5 million in funding for six clean technology projects in British Columbia. The funding is distributed through the Energy Innovation Program's Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) Research and Clean Fuels initiatives. The projects include
Carbon Engineering ULC - $5M for direct air capture
Arca Climate Technologies Inc. - $1.83M for carbon mineralization
University of British Columbia - $1.46M for pulp industry carbon capture
British Columbia Biocarbon Ltd. - $2.51M for biocoal development
Parkland Refining Ltd. - $980,500 for biocrude processing
Highbury Energy Inc. - $710,000 for renewable fuel gas study
(November 19) Brazil has passed a law establishing the Sistema Brasileiro de Comércio de Emissões de Gases de Efeito Estufa (SBCE), a national cap-and-trade system to be launched in phases over 5-6 years. The system will require compliance from ~4,000 companies emitting over 25,000 tCO2e/yr. There will also be reporting requirements for entities emitting more than 10,000CO2e/yr. The system will be implemented in five phases, including monitoring, reporting, and allowance allocation periods. The framework includes provisions for domestic carbon credits and enables international transfers under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. ICAP
Measuring carbon removed through Enhanced Rock Weathering
Austria-based Everest Carbon, founded in late 2022, has developed a sensor technology for measuring Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) carbon removal. The company initially began as a carbon removal startup and deployed 300+ tonnes of rock dust in India but after facing challenges in measuring how much COâ‚‚ they were successfully removing, Everest pivoted to become a measurement technology company in January 2024, relocating R&D to Linz, Austria.
The challenge in measuring carbon removals through ERW accurately and affordably is that you have to measure tiny amounts of carbonate alkalinity in small amounts of leachate water that leave the field across large land areas and a timescale spanning years. You also have to measure that in a time-integrated manner, meaning your equipment needs to measure the total cumulative amount of alkalinity at all times, as the weathering process takes place whenever there is non-zero soil moisture.
Ion-exchange resins accumulate ions from water streams and could be used for this, but are not selective enough - they will adsorb ions other than carbonate also from the streams. Everest has developed a patent-pending sensor technology using highly selective ion-exchange resins (IER) that can measure carbonate alkalinity directly in the field without requiring lab analysis. The sensors measure continuously, and upload the data to the cloud. This is more efficient and accurate than the conventional way of periodic sampling (by humans) to measure carbonate content.
Carbon Removal
Netherlands-based Zeroca is a carbon credit program aggregator, that helps develop e-mobility focused carbon credit programs in compliance markets. It has been helping develop an e-mobility program in Chile which will involve bilateral trading of carbon credits, as per Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement.
In December 2023, Chile and Switzerland signed an agreement that would allow the latter to offset emissions in Chile and count those towards its own climate targets. An e-mobility program that will generate carbon credits for early adoption of electric vehicles (including vans, trucks, buses, motorcycles, mobile machinery equipment, commercial vessels) and charging infra in Chile, has been submitted for validation by the governments of Chile and Switzerland. As per Zeroca, this is the first ITMO project to reach authorisation stage in Chile.
Swiss startup neustark captures COâ‚‚ from the waste stream of biogas plants and stores it in demolished concrete.
Demolished concrete aggregate contains hydrated cement phases. These hydrated cement phases are in contact with water, e.g. pore water – and thus in a solid-liquid equilibrium. Part of the hydrated cement is dissolved in the water and therefore present as ions. As CO₂ is also dissolved in this water, new mineral that exhibit lower solubility than the hydrated cement phases precipitate. And voilà , calcium carbonate (CACO3) is formed.
Thus, the CO₂ and the hydrated cement undergo a chemical transformation to form rock. This so-called carbonation reaction of 1 kg CO₂ releases heat such that the temperature of 1,000 kg of concrete increases by about 2.5°C.
The startup has announced
An agreement with Switzerland's Thurgauer Kantonalbank (TKB) to remove 100 tons of COâ‚‚ annually from the atmosphere starting 2026
A partnership with Switzerland-based Holcim, a maker of concrete, gravel and cement. The two companies have jointly commissioned 14 COâ‚‚ removal plants across Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and France. Each plant is capable of storing between 40-200 metric tons of COâ‚‚ annually. The partnership aims to reduce Holcim's net COâ‚‚ emissions per cubic meter of concrete in Switzerland by almost 40% by 2030, while neustark targets permanent storage of one million tons of COâ‚‚ in mineral waste streams by 2030.
A commitment to remove 1800 tonnes of COâ‚‚ by 2030 for AXA Switzerland. AXA has also purchased carbon removal - 1950 tonnes by 2028 - from the German-Brazilian startup InPlanet. InPlanet is also using Enhanced Rock Weathering to remove COâ‚‚ from the atmosphere.
Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal has provided an update on its European decarbonization plans, announcing delays in its previously planned investments in 'hydrogen ready' DRI-EAF facilities due to unfavorable policy and market conditions. The company has commenced construction on a 1.1 million tonne EAF at its long products plant in Gijón, Spain, which will reduce CO2e by 1 million tonnes. It is also expanding production to 1.6 million tonnes by 2026 at its Sestao plant, which mostly produces the low-carbon XCarb® steel. XCarb has a carbon footprint of 300 kg per tonne of steel produced.
UK-based Worldscale Association Ltd has selected Intercontinental Exchange's (ICE) European Carbon Allowance (EUA) futures settlement price as the benchmark carbon price for calculating tanker freight rates in 2025. The company will use the average daily settlement price from October 2023 to September 2024 of ICE's EUA futures December 2024 contract for carbon cost calculations in its 2025 tanker freight flat rates. This will be relevant for companies that must comply with the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), which will include maritime emissions from 2025. The tanker freight flat rate includes - bunker prices, port costs and exchange rates.
US-based Xpansiv has launched new carbon removals-only trading capabilities on its CBL spot exchange and Xpansiv Connect portfolio management system. The platform enables trading of tagged removal credits from ACR, Climate Action Reserve, Verra registries, and Puro.earth. The new system allows participants to manage removals positions from a single screen on the Xpansiv Connect system, which handles more than one billion asset transfers annually.
Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS), CCR Group, and Insper's National Observatory for Sustainable Mobility have launched a Transportation Sector Coalition to reduce CO2 emissions in Brazil's transport sector. The coalition will focus on six verticals: infrastructure; urban mobility; road & rail transport; air transport; and water transport and cabotage. The initiative involves participation from major companies and associations including MoveInfra, ABDIB, ANPTrilhos, Hidrovias do Brasil, Rumo, Siemens Energy, Volkswagen, Scania, Santos-Brasil, and Ultracargo. The coalition aims to contribute to Brazil's Climate Plan and will present its recommendations in the first quarter of 2025, ahead of COP30 in Belém, Pará. According to KPMG's Net Zero Readiness Report 2023, the transport sector accounts for 16% of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions. CEBDS
More Reading
US-based Renoster, which conducts pre- and post-issuance reviews of Nature-based carbon projects, has published a guide to Verra’s ABACUS Label & ARR Standards
Blog on British Columbia’s Output-Based Pricing System for Industrial Decarbonisation from Clear Blue Markets
