Charm Industrial Bio-oil Sequestration

Living plants, whether trees or agricultural crops, capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, after the plants die or the crops are harvested, the plants decompose and re-release that carbon. Charm collects plant waste, applies a heating process called pyrolysis that converts the plant waste into bio-oil, and injects that bio oil into deep wells or caverns where it hardens and will be stored permanently. Charm thereby makes the plants’ temporary removal of carbon dioxide permanent. While its technology is promising, Charm currently charges $600 per metric tonne of CO2e sequestered and is delivering only a small amount of carbon removal per year. CNaught supports companies like Charm to help send a market signal that will help innovative technologies like that developed by Charm can reach scale.

These projects face low risk of reversal because they are designed to store captured carbon for hundreds or even thousands of years. The primary risk of reversal comes from failure of the storage mechanism over the promised timeframe.