Unlocking the Power of Oceanic Carbon Capture w/ Ben Swainbank (Oceanid MRV)

Apr 21, 2023

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Today we are joined by the founder of Oceanid MRV, Ben Swainbank.

For context, carbon capture and the measurement of how much is captured is something pretty well solved in forestry and direct air capture. However, for oceanic capture, it is not. This presents a big dilemma as Oceanic Carbon Capture is widely regarded as the most scalable method to pull carbon out of the air at a gigaton scale.

Ben today talks to us about how he and his team are working on formalizing and certifying the amount and quality of carbon captured through such oceanic projects.

This conversation was super helpful for understanding why oceanic pathways are important as well as the challenges of measuring the work done in a manner that is accurate and sufficient to certify.

An interesting takeaway from this episode is how Ben, as a non-scientist, is building a company in a scientific space but is doing it by surrounding himself with a team of oceanographers and then bringing together the science and the commercial side of things.

Early on in the show he also walked us through the steps he took to decide if this was a space he should go deeper on. This was a very helpful framework for any aspiring ClimateTech founders.

We hope you enjoy this episode of the show!

Topics:

1:44 Intro and origin story
7:18 CDR Industry as a whole
- Trees
- DAC
- Ocean
9:17 Marine Pathways
- Biomass Cultivation
- Direct Ocean Capture
- Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement
11:53 How they capture carbon and measure it
14:04 Ocean Measurements
18:00 Durability of ocean capture
22:13 Starting the company
29:19 How their model works
33:04 The fundraising process
37:31 Advice to ocean MRV science startups
41:42 Making the jump to be a full-time entrepreneur
47:37 Starting a biz as a non-science founder
51:55 Corporate / Gov incentives
57:01 Closing thoughts

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