US-Based Carbon Sequestration Firm Running Tide to Shutdown Global Operations

US-based carbon sequestration firm Running Tide recently announced it will be shutting down its global operations, Iceland Review reported (6-18-24). Before its closure, the company had attracted major investors, including Microsoft and Shopify. The consequences are unclear for Iceland, where the company had a major base of operation.

Running Tide attempted to sequester carbon from the atmosphere at scale by sinking biomass, including seaweed and lumber, into the ocean. The goal was to create safe, long-term storage for carbon in the ocean, though this narrative has been complicated by recent reporting.

RÚV, Iceland’s independent public service broadcaster, reports that to date, the company sunk some 19 thousand tons of wood chips into Iceland’s coastal waters and that a “mountain” of wood chips made from imported Canadian lumber remains at their facility in Akranes. The company began operations in Iceland in 2022, and it is unclear what will happen to the chips in the wake of the closure.

Kristinn Árni Lár Hróbjartsson, managing director of Running Tide in Iceland, stated to RÚV: “Annually, a significant amount of timber sinks into the sea on a global scale, and it usually gets trapped there in the deep ocean. This happens naturally. When we talk about carbon sequestration by using biomass such as timber or plants or other materials, for it to be permanent, it needs to go to where it is permanently stored.”

Árni told RÚV that specialists at Microsoft and Shopify confirmed that Running Tide had sequestered some 25,000 ton of carbon on the seafloor. To date, however, no neutral party is reported to have confirmed this. Árni did tell RÚV that all relevant data had been sent to the Environment Agency of Iceland.