The progress of Enhanced Weathering as a solution for the climate crisis - in a TRL chart (updated)
The 2022 graph
We see progress! Three years ago, we shared a 2022 version of this graph in which we published our assessment of the state of the EW industry over all necessary steps. There were many more yellow and red boxes back then! It is becoming greener!
In 2022, there were under-developed boxes, especially in the “Science & Development” and “Awareness” field. There was a lot of progress in the science field: The number of scientific publications about enhanced weathering has been growing exponentially in recent years, and more and more knowledge gaps are being addressed. Companies like Everest are developing electronic sensors which are already in prototype testing in the field (eg. we have 9 of them in our XXL lysimeters). Certifications (Isometric, Puro), bookkeeping and marketplaces have improved.
Awareness has improved over the last few years, as well. Projects like the “Legion 44” film and PR work of the whole EW industry have brought more and more people in contact with this concept.
Our assessment of the box “model” (bottom right) has been downgraded, though. We now think that this box (now TRL 3 for “preliminary design”) was rated too optimistic back in 2022, and it still remains an unsolved issue. We are not aware of a measurement-truthed model for enhanced weathering that could be used to predict and track EW applications based on a limited set of data points.
The goal of such models is to enable us to fill the gaps between just a few measurements in the field, essentially to decrease the number of actual field measurements, whose high cost is one of the major obstacles for the scale-up of EW. Such a model needs to be trained on actual field data (still very much limited availability). It needs to take into account heterogeneity data and is fed with leachate, solid phase and sensor data from the actual rock dust applications. These models would also allow predictions of weathering rates, which are required in the planning phase of EW projects to decide WHAT rock is to be applied on WHAT soil and WHAT rate.
The need for a working EW model is the last remaining orange/red box in this graph, together with the “Policy and Regulation” box. EW needs to be accepted by policy makers and buyers worldwide as an option for negative emissions. The EU, for example, is just now considering EW as an accepted method for negative emissions in their regulation (see Hybrid Technical Workshop - Carbon Removals through ERW and OAE (in the context of CRCF)). Many people are working on this currently.
Let’s keep on pushing for more progress!
