Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture Spring Symposium

**The Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture Spring Symposium in May 2023 focuses on Enhanced Rock Weathering. The event features introductory lectures on enhanced rock weathering, sessions on the fundamental and applied science of enhanced rock weathering, and panel discussions on the implementation of solutions.**

Symposium Overview: Carbon dioxide removal from Earth’s atmosphere will be a key component of efforts to keep global temperature increases below those predicted to cause significant degradation of livelihoods, food security, and water supplies in the coming century. Importantly, extensive carbon dioxide removal is projected with high confidence to be required even in scenarios with rapid and deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. This will require the development and scaling of a massive carbon dioxide removal industry. However, multiple barriers are currently projected to leave a significant fraction of anticipated CDR demand on the table and the utility of current carbon marketplaces has been highly debated. In this symposium, we will explore the potential of enhanced weathering to provide at-scale permanent carbon dioxide removal and transform carbon marketplaces. We will explore a wide range of aspects of enhanced weathering--from key scientific unknowns to effects on local communities, to factors controlling the costs of this process that will ultimately dictate its impact and growth.
 

Symposium Schedule:
Monday May 1^st: 

4:00 - 5:30pm       Keynote talks (Holly Jean Buck and David Beerling)

5:30 – 8:00pm      Reception

Tuesday May 2^nd: 

8:30 - 9:15am          Breakfast
9:15am - 12:30pm  Symposium welcome, Introductory talk, Panel 1: Scientific Unknowns, Panel 2: Monitoring, Reporting,  Verification & Governance

12:30 - 1:30pm:       Lunch

1:30 - 4:30pm:        Panel 3: Co-benefits & Societal Impacts, Panel 4- Commercialization & Marketplaces

Confirmed speakers, panelists, and conveners: 

Keynote talks

Holly Jean Buck (University of Buffalo)

Assistant Professor, Department of Environment and Sustainability

• Climate change, global environmental governance, environmental policy, science and technology studies, public participation in emerging technologies

David Beerling (University of Sheffield)

Professor, School of Biosciences

Founder and director, Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation

• Biogeochemical improvement of agricultural lands with natural and artificial silicates

Tuesday, May 2nd: 

Symposium welcome: Introductory talk

Noah Planavsky (Yale University)

Assistant Professor, Earth & Planetary Sciences

• Evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane levels. Carbon cycling Long-term Earth evolution and climate Paleoweathering proxies

Panel 1: Scientific Unknowns

Salvatore Calabrese (Texas A&M University)

Assistant Professor, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering

• The interaction between carbon cycle, soil structure and properties, and soil moisture dynamics; sustainable agricultural practices; large scale interactions between water and carbon cycle; soil microbial modeling; enhanced weathering as a negative emissions technology.

Jim Saiers (Yale University)

Clifton R. Musser Professor, Hydrology

• Water quality, water resource management and policy, water scarcity, water: hydrology

Becca Neumann (University of Washington)

Associate Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering 

• Subsurface Hydrology and Metal Biogeochemistry

• Plant-controlled Hydrology and Biogeochemistry

• Field, Lab and Modeling Studies of Water and Food Quality

• Hydro-biogeochemistry

Ben Houlton (Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)

Dean, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences 

Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Professor, Department of Global Development

• Global ecosystem processes, climate change solutions, agricultural sustainability

Peter Raymond (Yale School of the Environment)

Senior Associate Dean of Research

Director, Doctoral Studies

Professor, Ecosystem Ecology

• The chemistry and ecology of inland waters. The exchange of greenhouse gasses between inland waters and the atmosphere, controls on the transport of terrestrial elements to inland and coastal waters, the metabolism of aquatic ecosystems, and how storms and droughts impact aquatic ecology, amongst others.

Panel 2: Monitoring, Reporting,  Verification & Governance

Maya Almaraz (Princeton University)

Associate Research Scholar, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The High Meadows Environmental Institute, and the School of Public and International Affairs

• Sustainable food Systems, biogeochemistryÔǼ, climate changeÔǼ

Justin Richardson (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

Assistant Professor,  Geoscience

• Soil biogeochemistry, trace metals, plant nutrients, forest soils, environmental contamination

Dimitar Epihov (Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation)

Research Associate

• Microbial ecology, bioinformatics and biogeochemistry, particularly the ecology of legumes, rock weathering, and soil metagenomics.

Stephanie Grand (University of Lausanne)

Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Geosciences and Environment

• Soil science, soil chemistry, soil organic matter, soil analysis, water quality, soil fertility, environment, nitrogen, soil biology.

Anu Khan (Carbon 180)

Deputy Director, Science and Innovation

• Reformed electrochemist working at the intersection of technology, policy, equity, and justice. 

• She works with researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry experts to understand barriers to scaling carbon removal and help design just and equitable policies to alleviate those barriers.

Panel 3: Co-benefits & Societal Impacts

Rachael James (University of Southampton)

Professor, Geochemistry

• Enhanced rock weathering and other techniques for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

• Novel isotopic signatures of biogeochemical cycling, including iron, chromium, lithium and magnesium, and the response of biogeochemical cycles to global environmental change

• Exploration for new sources of metals and elements critical for emerging green technologies, including lithium and the rare earth elements

Freya Chay (CarbonPlan)

Program Manager, CarbonPlan

• Interested in how climate-forced transformations will impact culture and communities.

Tom Reershemius (Yale University)

PhD Candidate, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (Planavsky Group)

• Isotope geochemistry;

• Sedimentology;

• Geological mapping.

Elizabeth Troein (Isometric)

Head of Science

• Isometric is a carbon removal registry, verification service, and science platform.

Chris Reinhard (Georgia Tech)

Associate Professor, School of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences

• Biogeochemistry of oxygen-deficient aqueous environments;

• Carbon cycle dynamics and geoengineering;

• Chemical evolution of Earth's oceans and atmosphere; 

• Planetary habitability and atmospheric biosignatures.

 

Panel 4- Commercialization & Marketplaces

Anu Khan (Carbon 180)

Deputy Director, Science and Innovation

• Reformed electrochemist working at the intersection of technology, policy, equity, and justice. She works with researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry experts to understand barriers to scaling carbon removal and help design just and equitable policies to alleviate those barriers.

Grace Andrews (Vesta)

Vice President & Head of Science

• Research investigated the rates of, and controls on, geologic time scale chemical weathering. Her work is in climate change mitigation, water chemistry, carbonate chemistry, carbon dioxide removal, geology, and agriculture. 

Mary Yap (Lithos)

Co-founder and CEO

• Past research includes climate research on methane cycling and hydrology. 

• Current company Lithos uses rocks to remove carbon in human seasons, rather than over geologic millennia

Adam Wolf (Eion)

Founder and CEO

• Eion’s mission is to remove carbon permanently and at scale, with rigorous scientific verification, while providing economic opportunity and environmental benefits for farmers and rural communities

Noah Planavsky (Yale University)

Assistant Professor, Earth & Planetary Sciences

• Evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane levels;

• Carbon cycling Long-term Earth evolution and climate Paleoweathering proxies.

About the Spring Symposium: Each spring the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture organizes and hosts a symposium focusing on one specific topic related to natural carbon capture and the implementation of climate solutions. 

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