In 2021, when Susie Strife, the director of sustainability, climate action and resilience for Boulder County, Colorado, met Ramon Alatorre, a climate analyst for the city of Flagstaff, Arizona, they faced a common challenge: Both their governments had committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by or before 2035. Reaching that target would require not only significant emissions reductions but also carbon removal, a process that draws carbon out of the atmosphere and stores it indefinitely.
Carbon removal is a nascent industry, and many of its technologies are untested at large scales. Current methods range from direct air capture — which uses chemicals to extract carbon from the air — to the restoration of carbon-rich wetlands and forests. While governments and businesses often pay distant companies to remove carbon on their behalf, Strife and Alatorre saw multiple benefits to investing in projects closer to home.
With the help of Chris Neidl, a carbon removal expert and co-founder of the research network OpenAir, Strife and Alatorre co-founded the 4 Corners Carbon Coalition. The coalition, which now includes five local governments — Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Boulder County, Flagstaff and Salt Lake City — established a fund to support carbon removal projects in the Four Corners states. It has awarded $725,000 in grants over the past two years. This year, it supported projects that repurpose organic waste, such as burning wood from local slash piles to produce nutrient-rich biochar.
High Country News sat down with Strife to talk about the coalition’s work.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
HCN: How does carbon removal fit into Boulder County’s climate goals?
Susie Strife: Boulder County, as a local government, has had aggressive climate goals for quite some time. We know that carbon dioxide removal is a necessary, complementary strategy to emissions reductions — like putting more renewables on the grid, electrifying our homes and tying that to clean energy — in order to meet our net-zero targets for 2030, 2035 and 2050.
HCN: How does the 4 Corners coalition help to achieve that?
SS: The priority for us is really to help initiate novel projects that have a future scale potential and local benefits, rather than picking projects that maximize carbon removal volume today.
What we’re trying to do is create a runway similar to the solar industry, where the cost curve goes down, the marketplace is lively, and there’s been some type of market transformation where carbon removal projects are actually on the ground and producing net removals over time.
HCN: What’s special about the Four Corners region that makes a partnership like this possible?
SS: We’ve all experienced catastrophic wildfires. And our constituents are very concerned about climate change.
We also have this amazing population of climate scientists, engineers and climate practitioners. We host national labs. We’re teeming with experts who are fostering and supporting our work and complementing our strategy all the time with different scientific inputs.
HCN: This year, the 4 Corners coalition grants focused on “liability biomass.” What is that, and why did you decide to center it?
SS: That’s a new term we’ve been using to refer to forest waste or woody debris that has accumulated in our Western forests due to fire suppression. That woody biomass increases our risk of catastrophic wildfire because it’s just fuel waiting to burn.
I think every city in our situation is looking at, “How do you manage this liability? How do you properly take something non-merchantable that is a risk to your community and create something merchantable that minimizes risk?” That’s the ideal situation here, right?
HCN: What are some of the projects that are managing this biomass?
SS: One company is Carba Inc. They’re taking locally sourced slash piles — (vegetation) piles that are just sitting there — collecting that, transporting it and creating biochar (a carbon-rich solid similar to charcoal). Over time, biochar releases a minuscule (amount of carbon) compared to decaying biomass.
HCN: What do they do with the biochar?
SS: There are a lot of amazing benefits of putting biochar back onto our soils and into our forests. It enhances soil fertility. It increases the ability of soil, one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, to capture and store carbon. It can absorb heavy metals and toxins.
HCN: How are other grantees using waste products to remove carbon?
SS: The one that’s going to be really interesting to follow is Bioforcetech Corporation. We have a waste problem, and this is looking at, “How do you create something usable out of that waste?” This is really biosolids — this is our poo produced during wastewater treatment — incorporating biochar into it, and then (turning it) into asphalt and concrete.
HCN: Last year, the coalition funded other projects that store carbon in concrete. Can you tell me a bit about those projects?
SS: There are some incredible projects in Flagstaff led by CarbonBuilt. They use direct air capture technology to remove carbon from the air and create low-carbon concrete blocks. The resulting concrete has 70%-100% less embodied carbon than traditional concrete.
They donated these ultra-low-carbon concrete blocks to Habitat for Humanity for 20 starter homes. Affordable housing and climate mitigation came together in that project.
HCN: The Colorado state Legislature recently passed two bills that align with 4 Corners’ work, one that studies the use of biochar in plugging oil and gas wells and another that requires state agencies to track the global warming potential of building materials for public projects. How does policy change fit into your mission?
SS: What we do here in Boulder County is a drop in the bucket to comparatively to the scale that’s needed for the climate crisis, so we’re always looking at, “How do we have these levers of change? How are we leading eventually to policy mechanisms that actually work in perpetuity for supporting this?” That’s when we know we’ve had a bigger impact at scale.
HCN: Can you tell me a bit about the community-driven aspect of 4 Corners’ work?
SS: We have a scientific review panel that is made up of nationally renowned scientists who have been focusing their entire careers on carbon removal.
On the other side, we have a local community steering committee and scoring committee that looks at, “Does this (project) match community values? What are the environmental justice impacts? What are the co-benefits? What are the resilience aspects? What are the workforce components?” So those come together to give final scores for this fund.
A lot of organizations don’t have the community voice, and a lot of others don’t have a scientific rigor. We have both.
HCN: What do you say to folks who are resistant to the idea of carbon removal, or see it as encouragement for companies to keep emitting?
SS: (4 Corners is) not some big company coming in and saying, “We need direct air capture, and we’re going to put it here.” We’re saying, “Let’s be very thoughtful about where these industries and practices should take place.” Like, how are we driving and incentivizing our farmers to support regeneration practices that can help regenerate the soil and draw down carbon?
We’re looking at very intentional, qualitative, values-driven work. It’s completely different than coming in as a private sector company saying, “We want this many tons removed without all those softer community components.”
When we can have an impact here with our innovation and showcase what’s possible to decision-makers and have that lead to policy and spawn even more carbon removal action — that’s exactly the sweet spot that we want to be.
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