Incentivizing Gigaton-Scale Carbon Dioxide Removal via a Climate-Positive Blockchain

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel climate-positive blockchain token incentivizing gigaton-scale CO2 removal through a Proof-of-Useful-Work consensus, integrating direct air capture with secure verification and energy considerations.

Contribution

It introduces a new crypto token and blockchain mechanism that incentivizes permanent CO2 removal at scale using climate-positive energy and verification methods.

Findings

Design of a climate-positive Proof-of-Useful-Work blockchain

A reward and verification mechanism for CO2 removal

Energy analysis ensuring climate positivity

Abstract

A new crypto token is proposed as an incentive mechanism to remove CO2 from the atmosphere permanently at gigaton scale. The token facilitates CO2 removal (CDR) by providing financial incentives to those that are removing CO2 and an opportunity to provide additional financial resources for CDR by the public. The new token will be native to a blockchain that uses a Proof-of-Useful-Work (PoUW) consensus mechanism. The useful work will be conducted by direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) facilities that will compete with each other based on the amount of CO2 captured and permanently stored. In terms of energy consumption, we require that the entire process, comprising DACCS technology and all blockchain operations, be climate positive while accounting for life cycle analysis of equipment used. We describe the underlying reward mechanism coupled with a verification mechanism for CDR. In addition, we consider security features to limit attacks and fraudulent activity. Finally, we outline a roadmap of features that are necessary to fully implement and deploy such a system, but are beyond the current scope of this article.