US-based Mati Carbon collected a $50 million check last week after winning the grand prize at the Xprize Carbon Removal Competition. The award, sponsored by Elon Musk's Charitable Foundation, is the world's largest scheme to encourage technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
Mati Carbon won the award for its enhanced rock weathering technology. The solution, pioneered in India and currently piloted in Zambia and Tanzania, aims to generate carbon credits by removing carbon from the atmosphere, while improving soil health.
“This is an advantage for both farmers, a victory for the climate and a victory for the companies that are purchasing these credits,” says Shantanu Agarwal, founder and CEO of the company.
This technology speeds up processes that occur naturally but take thousands of years. In nature, certain types of rocks are exposed to the atmosphere, resulting in chemical reactions that ultimately lead to the formation of mineral compounds such as limestone. In this way, carbon is removed from the atmosphere and sequestered in a mineralized form.
Weathering of strengthened rocks involves crushing rock types that react most with CO2, such as basalt, which increases the surface area of ​​rocks exposed to the atmosphere. The powder then spreads into the field where it reacts with CO2 in the air and water. This process not only sequesters carbon much faster than it occurs naturally, but also releases key nutrients that increase soil fertility.
Matty Carbon's Chief Science Officer Jake Jordan says Indian rice padies using the company's rock powder are reporting an increase in yields “over 20%.”
“This is a service that is free to offer without being changed to either farmer practice or land use. So, an increase in yields of over 20 actually represents a translation into a 20 plus increase in revenue.”
Agarwal adds that even better results are expected in the most degraded soils, including parts of Africa that have experienced long-term droughts.
“The more soil deteriorates, the better the results,” he says, claiming he is seeing a huge demand for powders in Zambia after the promising results of the first field test.
Crazy goal
The reason why Mati Carbon can deliver this rock powder to farmers for free is because its business model is based on the sale of carbon credits.
Agrawal claims that despite the continued volatility in the carbon market, which has been hit by multiple controversy in recent years, “moment continues to accumulate.” He points out that the Trump administration has done to remove pressure to act on climate change, but giants of US companies such as Microsoft have announced large purchases in recent weeks.
Additionally, enhanced rock weathering credits have important advantages over planting or forest conservation credits. Credit buyers can feel confident that mineralized carbon will be safely sequestered for millions of years.
“Simply planting trees is this inefficient solution,” Jordan says. “The fact in question can always lose the carbon that is bound by that biomass.”
In addition to revenue from credit sales, Mati Carbon hopes to rely on grant funding to cover the upfront costs for establishing new projects in Africa.
“Grant's funds are key to being opened to new areas,” Agrawal says. “If these countries don't have this kind of funding, there's no way these technologies can flourish.”
In India, Agrawal said Mati Carbon has already made progress beyond its dependence on grants, and now funds its work with credit sales and commercial debt. In Africa, he expects to reach this stage in three or four years.
The ultimate goal is to expand to cover around 30 countries in the southern part of the world over the next five years.
“It's a crazy and irrational goal in some ways to chase after 100 million small farmers,” Agrawal admits. “But I think that's what we need. If we don't do this, who would do that?”
