Cara Maesano: Can Heavy Industry Scale CDR?

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Cara Maesano: Can Heavy Industry Scale CDR?

RMI's head of Carbon Dioxide Removals research on why it's not a nice-to-have, it's a must-do.

Richard Delevan

and

Cara Maesano

May 29, 2025

Transcript

We Start at the End

Today’s outro track is the 1971 soul classic “Clean Up Woman” by Betty Wright - the reasons will become clear.

As we talked about with folk from Carbon Technology Research Foundation and

Robert Höglund

last week, Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is going through some things. The Trump administration is slashing funding for Direct Air Capture (DAC) hubs, poster child CDR firm Climeworks is laying off 20% of staff and stands accused of overpromising an underdelivering on removals.

But in a week when a Swiss village was wiped off the map by a collapsing glacier, and the World Meteorological Organisation predicted we’re likely facing years of staying at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels - the existential threshold for small island states they demanded be included in the Paris Agreement - the need to find ways to take greenhouse gases out of the air (while electrifying and decarbonising) has not gone away.

Cara Maesano has one of the most comprehensive views of the state of CDR technologies as the head of CDR research at RMI. Recent reports she helped craft point out pragmatic opportunities for joined-up thinking by integrating carbon removals in industry and agriculture - and even using captured carbon in building materials.