Continuing our agency’s interview series with sustainability leaders from the technology, aviation, travel, tourism, retail, and hospitality sectors, we spoke with Harris Cohn, Head of Sales at Charm Industrial. The California-based startup has developed a unique carbon removal technology that liquefies wood and farm waste, storing it underground.
Scientists warn that the world’s remaining oil reserves must be left ‘in the ground’ if we want to mitigate global warming. But one San Francisco and Colorado-based start-up has gone even further, by devising a new climate solution that focuses on putting oil back into the ground. The difference is that this ‘oil’ is not made from fossilized plants and animals that lived millions of years ago, but is newly created from natural waste that has nowhere safe to go.
In 2018, software entrepreneur Peter Reinhardt founded Charm Industrial because he was frustrated that the nature-based carbon credits he was purchasing were not permanent. These credits, for example, often relate to tree planting, but most trees only live between 40 and 70 years.
“After researching to find a more permanent solution, the company’s chief scientist, Shaun Meehan, achieved two pivotal breakthroughs in 2019. First, he converted bulky biomass into bio-oil and then safely injected it deep underground for millennia-scale sequestration,” explained Cohn.
Charm Industrial’s focus duly became its proprietary bio-oil technology, although today, it also produces biochar, the eco-friendly charcoal that can be added to soil to increase soil health and the soil’s ability to store carbon. To date, the business has permanently removed 10,670 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It sells carbon removal credits to corporate customers, including Stripe, JPMorgan, Chase, Shopify and Microsoft.
Charm Industrial’s bio-oil technology is ingenious, as it utilizes disused facilities and pre-existing waste, specifically old oil wells and the biomass left over from wildfire mitigation and resiliency projects, which help restore natural ecosystems and protect communities.
“We’re very proud that our technology utilizes these undervalued resources,” said Cohn. “In the Western U.S., there are about 50 million acres of forest that are a high priority for catastrophic wildfire risk reduction. This often includes removing a portion of small-diameter trees and trees impacted by disease. In most of those critical areas, there aren’t any businesses or people who can utilize this low-value material; they can’t make enough from it to pay for the cost of removing it from the forest. This means the wood is usually piled up and burned, which can be detrimental to forest health and create air pollution.
Meanwhile, orphaned and idled oil wells can create safety issues for local communities and ongoing environmental problems. If a well site falls into disrepair, it can leak dangerous gases, such as methane, into the atmosphere—and salty, hydrocarbon-laced liquid into the surrounding land. Meanwhile, surface equipment, including tanks, pipes, and pumps, is not maintained and can pose hazards to humans, wildlife, and the environment.
Charm Industrial’s solution addresses the challenges of processing and storing these wastes, as well as responsibly addressing the associated hazards.
“When we acquire an old well, we test it first. If it needs to be fixed, then we work with the landowner and appropriate agency to do so safely,” explained Cohn. “Once we have stabilized it by improving the mechanical integrity, we fill the appropriate amount of the reservoir with bio-oil, before closing it permanently and restoring the surface to its original condition.”
Carbon removal is a burgeoning sector because all pathways to net zero rely on it. Solutions are either natural, such as tree planting, improving soil health, and boosting ocean ecosystems, or engineered by humans, like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The problem with the latter is that they are in the very early stages of development. No one has yet worked out how to deploy them at the scale and speed required to meet the world’s climate goals, which is why new engineered solutions, like Charm Industrial’s, are so vital.
The startup’s technology is similar to CCS, as both involve putting carbon into the underground formations that once held oil or gas. However, Cohn was keen to point out the difference:
“Once injected deep underground, our bio-oil sinks beneath subsurface brine because it’s a much denser liquid. Then it solidifies within the geological formations, stabilized by its own properties and the surrounding layers of rock, ensuring that it remains permanently locked away. In this way, it contrasts with CCS, which involves putting supercritical carbon dioxide underground, where it behaves like a gas. As CO2 gases are light and always want to rise and return to the atmosphere, storing them underground is much more challenging. It’s a lot more expensive to construct a well that will contain them; such sites often have subsurface plumes that are miles long, in comparison to bio-oil plumes that are hundreds of feet. Unlike CCS, bio-oil injection doesn't require drilling new wells.”
But before this technology can be deployed at scale, Cohn said four challenges must be overcome.
“First, we need more corporate buyers to enter the market to help scale demand and bring costs down. Another barrier is regulatory resources. While there’s a vast body of knowledge about the subsurface and oil and gas production, ours is a new approach, and it takes time for regulators to apply their frameworks to what we’re doing.
“We also need more skilled workers and, finally, we must continuously advance our technology. All of these areas must converge so we can scale at the necessary pace. But we believe we can do it, because our solution brings together the very best of nature and technology.”
To learn how Charm Industrial is turning agricultural and forestry residues into stable bio-oil and injecting it into abandoned wells for millennial-standard carbon removal, visit www.charmindustrial.com.
Catch up on other interviews in our Sustainability Leadership Series:
Using AI to Stabilize the Grid – Meet the team at Flower, the Swedish cleantech firm optimizing battery storage to make renewable energy reliable across Europe.