Photo-Album: What ERW Looks Like — Projects Around the World

There are more weathering projects that actually spread rocks on fields than you might think!

We have asked people from around the world that are doing enhanced weathering projects with basalt or other rocks to send us some photos and a short description of their work.

We also asked for the amounts of rock applied in 2022 and planned for 2023: From the ones that answered this question we can see that more than 50.000 tons were applied in 2022 and more than 500.000 tons are planned for 2023 - that’s x10, the speed that we need to get to gigatons in 2050!

Here is the photo collection of their work:

Lithos Carbon (US)

Lithos Carbon deploys enhanced rock weathering with the aim of powering a Gigaton of CO₂ capture this decade. Lithos spreads basalt on croplands to permanently remove CO₂ from the atmosphere with eventual storage as ocean bicarbonate. They're live across the USA, and their technology uses novel 3-D transport soil biogeochemical models and machine learning to maximize CO₂ removal, speed up removal timescales, and maximize yields for farmers. They replace liming amendments on farms (preventing emissions of lime), and their tech safely guarantees crop yields, maximizes nutrient uptake efficiency, and boosts crop growth. They focused their initial efforts on tailoring deployment for agronomic benefits as well as capture speeds. With this approach, they've been able to demonstrate in live deployments CDR rates that are significantly higher than unoptimized systems.

The team is laser-focused on scientific rigor and transparency in the process. They are scaling their novel empirical isotope technique (MRV) which enables high-accuracy capture verification at low cost. They've also invested in river network leakage studies and plant-tissue studies to advance cradle-to-grave measurement of CO₂ drawdown and long-term ecosystem impact. Though Lithos is based in the USA, Lithos is passionate about helping teams across the globe with deployment and measurement (MRV) of Enhanced Weathering in their own projects. They can help ERW teams optimize the process for diverse climates with complex soil types! In 2022, Lithos will apply approximately 11,000 metric tons of basalt, and in 2023 they are aiming for 30,000 tons of basalt. It's an ambitious goal that the ERW community is aiming for, but they believe that doing this hard work is the only way to scale this climate solution, and crush the climate crisis in its tracks.

Thanks to Mary Yap, www.lithoscarbon.com

Eion (US)

Eion is a carbon dioxide removal company that uses high-efficiency, fast- weathering minerals applied on farmland. Their field-proven, patent-pending direct measurement process delivers permanent carbon removal that is independently verifiable. Finally, the EPA-approved minerals they apply not only safely remove carbon, but also provide durable jobs in rural economies, alongside diverse environmental co-benefits.

Eion measures the carbon captured by CarbonLock through our patent-pending mineral fingerprinting approach. Using trace immobile elements that are naturally occurring in our applied minerals, we can verify and monitor the original application, as well as the weathering rate, determining the final amount of carbon captured. For farmers, this process simply entails allowing Eion to collect soil samples, a familiar agronomic approach.

Eion provides farmers with a subsidized version of an essential agricultural input, one that is growing more expensive in the region we operate within. Our product requires no practice change or new equipment on the part of the farmer, and provides local farmers, retailers, and service providers with additional revenue streams to benefit from. We partner exclusively with well-known local operators who have earned their customers’ trust over their more than 15 years in operation. 

Thanks to Eliza Wright, eioncarbon.com

UnDO (UK/US)

UNDO is a world-leading carbon dioxide removal project developer specialising in enhanced weathering, a nature-based technology that permanently removes CO₂ from the atmosphere. For millions of years, CO₂ has combined with rainwater to form carbonic acid. When this dilute acid falls on mountains, forests and grassland, the CO₂ interacts with rocks and soil, mineralises and is safely stored as solid carbon for hundreds of thousands of years. UNDO accelerates and enhances this natural weathering process by spreading crushed basalt rock on agricultural land, vastly increasing the surface area of the rock and therefore increasing its contact with CO₂. This year, we have put down 12,000t so far and have plans for a further 30,000t, split across our UK and US operations. Next year, we plan to spread over 200kt of rock.

Thanks to Jim Mann, un-do.com

V6 Agronomy (Canada)

V6 continues to stockpile and deploy metabasalt rock dust in Saskatchewan and Ontario Canada for broadacre field deployment on agricultural lands. We have clearly observed the product's incredible capacity for soil remineralization and increased nutrient use efficiency (row crops and forages) over multiple soil types. Present studies include admixing the fines with commercial fertilizers to observe potential for sustainable N stabilization and scalable granulation systems.

Thanks to Ryan MT Brophy, v6agronomy.com

Inplanet (Brazil)

Inplanet focuses on applying silicate rock powder on agri- and silvicultural land in regions where the potential for increased weathering rates is highest: the tropics. This practice can restore degraded soils, and has various ecological benefits for humans and wildlife. It guarantees future food security, and allows for impactful socio-economic capacity building. Inplanet's solution connects farmers and mines with the global carbon market to accelerate the transition to a low carbon, nature based, and regenerative tropical agriculture. Inplanet's entry market is Brazil, a country that offers a vast mining infrastructure, access to clean renewable energy, and optimal edaphoclimatic conditions for effective and fast weathering. Brazil has a long history of research related to the use of rock powders in agriculture. However, the market remains far behind its potential as incentives for mass adoption of rock powder fertilization (in Brazil usually referred to as rochagem) are missing. Until now, scientists have focused on agronomic benefits and almost no research has been conducted about its carbon sequestration potential. Inplanet is tackling this knowledge gap and aims to create the missing incentives for its mass adoption by acting as the pioneers and catalysts for enhanced weathering carbon credits, initially in Brazil and later the global tropics. Inplanet's efforts are focused on understanding the particularities of tropical soils (low pH, silica depletion, low orgC content), interacting with a range of rock powders (basalt, kamafugite, serpentinite, phyllite, etc.) and weathering accelerators (fungi, bacteria, biochar and organic composts).

In 2022 we applied 1000t of silicate rock powder (and 7,5t of biochar in a first pilot in the beginning of the year). We are planning to deploy 25.000t in 2023 and then quintuple this amount per year over the next 3 years. 

Thanks to Niklas Kluger, inplanet.earth

Swaniti Initiative (IndiA)

They did a trial with 20 tons in 2020 and are targeting to deploy 10,000 tons of rock materials next year (2023).

Thanks to Shantanu Agarwal, www.swaniti.com

Deltares (The Netherlands)

Deltares runs field experiments in Delft, NL.

Thanks to Pol Knopps

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University of Antwerp (Belgium)

At the University of Antwerp, Belgium, within the research group PLECO (Plants and Ecosystems), we conduct an enhanced weathering experiment with 116 mesocosms, using basalt (50 ton ha -1 ) and 2 types of steel slags (5 ton ha -1 ). The slags were prepared in the lab to create 3 levels of carbonation. The overall goal is to estimate the total carbon sequestration by enhanced silicate weathering, taking inorganic as well as organic carbon into account. Part of the mesocosms will be harvested at the end of the season, while others will be kept over winter, followed by another growing season of maize to study the long-term carbon sequestration. Because in nature, several biota may strongly increase the weathering rates, the experiment investigates also the influence of worms, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant roots. Besides the carbon sequestration, we also study effects of silicate addition in agriculture. This includes crop growth, nutrient cycling and metal contamination. This research is funded by the Research Foundation Flanders and the University of Antwerp. Feel free to follow the experiment on Instagram (EnhancedweatheringRocks).

Thanks to Laura Steinwidder, Lucilla Boito & Jet Rijnders

Ithaka Institute (Germany)

Ithaka conducted two greenhouse experiments near Aschaffenburg, Germany, in close cooperation with University of Hamburg and Wageningen University. The goal was to compare pots with and without plant (maize), three different soils and co-apply biochar with the rock-powder. The greenhouse was not heated, but the pots were placed in a water bath that was maintained at 20 °C.

Thanks to Nikolas Hagemann, ithaka-institut.org

Fieldcode (Greece)

Softwarecompany Fieldcode has been running basalt/olivine trials in Larissa, Greece since 2021. Last year Project Carbdown’s endeavours in Greece kicked off with the addition of 6 different olivine rich rock dusts (a total of 4500 kg) to a 2 hectare cotton field in Thessaly. Ingrid has written an extensive report about it.

Thanks to Ingrid Smet, fieldcode.com

Project Carbdown (Germany)

Finally, here are a few photos from our own basalt projects. For our scientific experiments we have spread 11 tons of basalt and olivine rich rocks in 2021 and 1300 tons this year. Read more about our most recent 1200t pilot project here: How CDR with rock weathering can be done practically and profitably (Part 1).