Charm Industrial

The case for Charm

• Biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRs) offers a promising path to low-cost removal at scale. The core insight underlying BiCRs is to use waste biomass—leveraging billions of tons of CO₂ already being captured via photosynthesis—and then do something with that biomass to ensure that the captured CO₂ is stored permanently. Companies are exploring a wide range of strategies to do this, from bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), to burying the waste biomass in sealed vaults, to (in Charm’s case) converting the waste biomass into bio-oil and then injecting that underground. Experts estimate¹ that there will likely be enough waste and residue biomass globally by 2050 to support gigatons of carbon removal annually.

• Charm’s modular approach utilizes small, mobile pyrolyzers to convert waste biomass into bio-oil anywhere waste biomass can be found. Charm’s pyrolyzers can be moved from farm to farm on the back of a truck bed, similar to other farm equipment. On-site pyrolysis minimizes the need to transport raw biomass, and instead allows Charm to transport 5-7x denser bio-oil. Importantly, Charm takes advantage of biomass feedstocks that are high volume and easily characterized as waste (corn stover and forest fire management waste).

• Charm has a challenging but feasible path to low-cost, high-volume removal. By producing many smaller pyrolyzers rather than a few very large facilities, Charm may benefit from higher learning rates as it scales to tens of thousands of pyrolyzers. By operating pyrolyzers directly on-premise, Charm can both be flexible in where it sources its biomass and reduce the cost of handling and transporting the biomass pre-pyrolysis.

• Charm has an impressive track record of execution. In just three years Charm progressed from a concept to being a leader in the space—delivering >6,000 tons of removal, more than any other permanent CDR supplier to date. Since starting operations in 2020, Charm has iterated on their core technology and key processes quickly and responsibly.

• Still, Charm’s successful scaleup is not guaranteed. In the near-term, Charm’s declining cost curve depends on many things going right, such as building and efficiently operating pyrolyzers on-field, learning quickly from modular deployment, and securing adequate demand to get them down the cost curve.

• At very large scales there are limits to any one carbon removal approach, Charm’s approach included. For example, (1) whether pyrolysis-to-bio-oil-sequestration will be the best use of waste biomass (even Charm plans to add pyrolysis-to-bio-oil-for-ironmaking) and (2) whether at huge scales, the marginal ton of waste biomass is still net-negative. However, these concerns for the pathway begin to emerge largely at the multi gigaton-scale. For context, most carbon pathways will face challenges at these mass volumes, hence the need for a portfolio of approaches, much like how renewable power at scale will likely be a mix of wind, solar, geothermal and nuclear.