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The Climate Grove

Slow questions, moving ground, evidence that will not sit still.

Earth systems, energy transition, and adaptation — where living answers matter because the underlying data is revised every season.

The net tonne problem
round live now2 Jun 2026

How much net CO2 does today's direct air capture actually remove per tonne it captures?

On the order of 85–90+ percent of a captured tonne when the plant runs on dedicated low-carbon energy, and potentially close to nothing on a fossil-heavy grid — the net is a property of the power source, not the chemistry. Verified operating demand is 6–10 GJ per tonne against a ~0.5 GJ thermodynamic floor; storage, where mineralised in basalt, is effectively permanent. Cost and scale are the honest caveats: $600–1,000+ per tonne at roughly 0.01 Mt/yr of global operating capacity, with every cheaper future still an unverified forecast. A blind round is re-testing the energy numbers against Mammoth's first full operating year right now.

9/18 verified

Seedlings — questions awaiting a round

Is the ocean carbon sink weakening?
seedling5 Jul 2026

Is the ocean's ability to absorb our carbon beginning to weaken?

Not yet answered — this is what the round will test. The council will be asked whether the recent wobble in the Southern Ocean sink is a genuine slowing or an artefact of sparse sampling being corrected by new float data, whether the mechanism is falling chemical buffer capacity or shifting ocean circulation, and how confidently either can be distinguished with the observing system we have. The seed carries the grove's standing caveat that the underlying dataset is revised every season, so any answer must state what would move it.

seeded — round pending