A running list of all the great writing I’ve found on the subject of mitigating climate change via carbon dioxide removal (CDR). You’ll see that much of it relies on order-of-magnitude calculations to help bootstrap intuition, which perhaps reveals my aesthetic preferences as a biophysicist. (You’ll also see that I’ve generally chosen to structure things people-first, rather than resource-first, which perhaps reveals my aesthetic preferences as a human being.)
If you have any suggested additions to this list, I’d love to hear them.
For completeness, I have to mention the IPCC AR6, although it’s a daunting read (whereas I’ve tried to curate more accessible resources below). The abridged synthesis report is a good place to start.
Adam Marblestone of Convergent Research has a characteristically excellent Climate Technology Primer.
In late 2021, Neil Hacker began publishing an excellent blog titled Scaling Carbon Removal — so excellent, in fact, that it apparently ended up landing him a job managing a carbon credit portfolio at Isometric.
Casey Handmer (ex-Caltech, ex-JPL) is the founder of Terraform Industries, an LA startup that’s betting that cheap solar will soon make atmospheric hydrocarbon synthesis economical. He writes one of my favorite blogs (and tweets some of my favorite tweets).
Ryan Orbuch of Lowercarbon Capital put together a primer on CDR, We need to take CO2 out of the sky. He also shared his negative emissions reading list, which has substantial overlap with the one you’re reading right now.
Nan Ransohoff heads Stripe Climate, which facilitates carbon removal purchases via an advance market commitment called Frontier. She occasionally writes about the economics of carbon removal.
It’s been over a decade since the late great Sir David MacKay self-published his seminal free textbook, Sustainable Energy — without the hot air; while not exclusively focused on CDR, it remains a tour-de-force for anyone interested in human impacts.
More recently, Tom Murphy published the similarly free-and-excellent Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, although for some reason it seems to be far less well-known. Murphy is a physics professor at UCSD; much of the material for his book first appeared on his epic blog, Do the Math.
The indescribably polymathic Bret Victor, who writes at worrydream, has a beautiful interactive article entitled What can a technologist do about climate change? A personal view.
Homeworld Collective maintains a repository of research problem statements linking biotechnology and climate.
Michael Nielsen needs no introduction. Unsurprisingly, despite not really working on climate, he’s shared thoughtful “working notes” on direct air capture.
Y Combinator has a request for startups working on carbon removal tech that includes a brief overview geared towards non-technical audiences.
Erika Reinhardt has a stunning Data-Driven Guide to Effective Personal Climate Action.