Charm Industrial
Bio-Oil Sequestration Project
Carbon Removal
2021
Kansas and Colorado, USA
Charm Industrial removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by converting plant biomass into a stable, carbon-rich bio-oil, and injecting it deep underground for permanent sequestration. This process uses agricultural and forestry residues that would otherwise decompose or be burned, releasing carbon back into the atmosphere. Charm Industrial's innovative approach offers a long-term solution for carbon removal, with the potential to scale and sequester gigatons of CO2e annually.
Project Timelines
Vintage: 2021
Years Active: 2021 - 2024
Project Lifetime: 2021 and beyond
Why this matters
Charm Industrial's bio-oil sequestration technology offers a unique and promising solution to climate change by permanently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with essentially no risk of reversal. By utilizing existing infrastructure and readily available plant biomass, this project provides a scalable and cost-effective way to achieve significant carbon removal. The project also offers co-benefits such as wildfire reduction, abandoned oil-well leak prevention, and economic benefits to local communities. Charm Industrial’s technology and implementation are in early stages, and are slated to scale quickly. Frontier projects, like Charm, create technological and financial momentum for other innovative solutions to remove carbon, including Charm’s new Bio-Char project.
Impact
Operational since 2021, demonstrating rapid deployment of a novel carbon removal method.
Permanently stores carbon captured by plants, with a target underground storage time of 10,000+ years.
Current technology and implementation has removed ~7,500 tons of CO2e (as of Jan 2025).
Helps to create a market for bio-oil sequestration and technology development, driving further innovation in the field.
Sources: Charm
Co-benefits
Supports sustainable agriculture and forestry practices by repurposing agricultural waste, reducing open-field burning and associated air pollution.
Potential for bio-oil to be used in other industrial applications, further reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
Reduces wildfire risk by utilizing forest slash.
Supports rural economies through job creation, partnering with local landowners and farmers to utilize agricultural and forestry residues.
Helps prevent gas leaks from abandoned oil and gas wells, primarily methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
This project’s activities meet the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:
Benefits
Permanent Carbon Removal: Bio-oil sequestration offers a highly durable and permanent solution for carbon removal, with the bio-oil solidifying underground and remaining sequestered for thousands of years.
Scalability: Charm's technology is designed to be rapidly scalable, with the potential to remove gigatons of CO2 annually, in the coming decades.
Verifiable: The process is meticulously tracked and verified, ensuring the actual amount of carbon removed is accurately measured.
Waste Utilization: The project utilizes agricultural and forestry residues that would otherwise decompose or be burned, putting carbon into the atmosphere.
Economic Benefits: Creates jobs for locals and stimulates economic activity while promoting sustainable land management practices.
Environmental Co-Benefits: In addition to carbon removal, the project offers various environmental co-benefits, such as wildfire reduction and improved air quality.
Risks
Early-Stage Technology: While promising, bio-oil sequestration is still a relatively new technology, and long-term impacts and the full carbon life-cycle are still being studied.
Scaling Operations: Scaling up bio-oil sequestration requires overcoming technological hurdles related to biomass processing, transportation, and injection.
Environmental Consequences: While considered low, there are potential environmental risks associated with bio-oil sequestration, such as leakage from injection wells or impacts on groundwater.
Permitting and Regulation: The regulatory landscape for deep well injection is complex and may present challenges to rapid scaling.
Negative Public Perception: Public acceptance of deep well injection technologies may be a challenge in some communities.
High Costs: The current cost of bio-oil sequestration is relatively high, including costs of process energy and biomass, although it is expected to decrease with technological advancements and economies of scale.
Ratings
Registry
Durability
Additionality
ID 7BDE
Attributes
Excellent
Bio-oil is expected to remain stable underground for over 10,000 years, based on geological evidence, chemical analysis, and modeling.
The project utilizes geological formations that have stored oil and gas for millions of years.
Isometric's protocol includes rigorous monitoring and verification to ensure permanence.
Sources: Isometric, Carbon(Plan)
Very Good
No regulations exist to decrease carbon release from this biomass source; the sale of carbon credits is required to achieve carbon reduction targets.
The high cost of the technology requires carbon credit revenues to be economically viable.
Some industrial applications for bio-oil exist, thus there are minor economic incentives for bio-oil production.
Project utilizes waste biomass that would otherwise decompose or be burned; the baseline is no sequestered carbon from this biomass source.
Sources: ICF Resource Report, Charm
Verifiability
Excellent
Charm Industrial meticulously tracks biomass feedstock, bio-oil production, transportation, injection, and other parts of the carbon life-cycle of their process, providing detailed data on their public ledger.
Charm Industrial has developed a comprehensive monitoring and verification system, and publicly shares its data, methodologies, and carbon credit transactions, ensuring transparency.
The project undergoes third-party verification by Isometric, a leading carbon removal standard and registry platform.
Isometric's protocol ensures that each carbon credit represents a genuine metric ton of CO2e removed.
Carbon Protocols
Hutchinson, Kansas, USA
Photos
