Charm Industrial

The Approach

Charm Industrial collects waste biomass, such as leftover corn stalks and forest-management residue, and converts it by pyrolysis: heating it to a high temperature with little oxygen. Pyrolysis produces syngas, which powers the units; biochar, which can go back on fields to improve the soil; and a carbon-rich bio-oil. Charm runs small, mobile pyrolyzers that move between farms, so the biomass is converted where it is grown. The bio-oil is injected into EPA-regulated wells, where it sinks and solidifies, storing the carbon permanently.

The Case for Charm Industrial

Waste biomass is a large, low-cost source of removal. It uses carbon that plants have already captured through photosynthesis, and published estimates suggest there will be enough waste biomass by 2050 to support gigatons of removal a year.

Mobile units cut logistics costs. Converting biomass on site produces bio-oil 5 to 7 times denser than the raw biomass, so far less material is transported. Feedstocks such as corn stover and wildfire-management residue are plentiful and clearly waste.

Many small units mean faster learning. Building many pyrolyzers, potentially tens of thousands, gives more chances to learn and lower costs than a few large plants.

A delivery track record. Charm began operating in 2020 and had delivered more than 6,000 tons of removal when Frontier contracted, more than any other permanent removal supplier at the time.

Open questions. The cost decline depends on running pyrolyzers efficiently in the field and on enough demand. At multi-gigaton scale it is unclear whether bio-oil storage is the best use of waste biomass, a question most pathways face, which is why Frontier buys across a portfolio.

Pricing and Delivery

Frontier buyers contracted $52.9 million for 112,003 tons in a 2023 offtake, for delivery from 2024 to 2030. The price per ton is expected to fall by at least 37% over that period, and by up to 75%. It covers both the removal and the measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) that each ton is safely and permanently stored.