🌊 🇺🇸 The U.S. leads the way on marine carbon dioxide removal permitting 🇺🇸 🌊

💧 Ocean or marine carbon dioxide removal (hashtag#mCDR) remains a hot topic: huge potential for carbon removal, but also significant uncertainties regarding environmental impacts. Against this backdrop, two very important developments are coming out of the U.S.

➡ The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released its guidance for mCDR, showing how legislators can proactively develop permitting rules that strike the right balance between caution and urgency. See full guidance here: https://lnkd.in/dwEvc9yq

➡ Vesta, PBC became the first mCDR project in the US to receive an official EPA permit for a larger project involving 9,000t of olivine to be deployed in North Carolina. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dTcxUP8v

💡 I recently posted about the challenges of mCDR regulation (see comments). The post unleashed an excellent debate around the need to treat carefully and not get carried away by commercial incentives, instead focusing on research. 

👉 My argument has been and is: we need to let science and commercial deployments proceed in parallel. If anything, they should and work together. Vesta’s project is a prime example: dozens of scientists will be involved, both on Vesta’s payroll and beyond, following strict criteria for assessing the impact of this first-of-a-kind deployment.

💪 These developments are very promising and I hope other governments/jurisdictions are taking note. The answer does not lie in bans, nor in research alone, but in pragmatic permitting and responsible deployments.

🤔 What is your take? Is this moving to fast or just right? 

#marinecdr #oceancdr #permitting