Professor of Geology & Geophysics, Yale University; Scientific Leadership Team, Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture; co-founder, CREW Carbon; scientific advisor to Verra and Ceezer; Senior Contributing Scientist at EDF and Cascade Climate. The single highest-leverage first contact in the Trellison carbon capture portfolio.
Noah J. Planavsky is a Professor of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University's Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, and a member of the Scientific Leadership Team of the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture. He co-founded CREW Carbon, a Yale spin-out that pairs enhanced mineral weathering with wastewater treatment, and serves as a scientific advisor to Verra (the world's largest carbon-credit registry), Ceezer (a carbon-credit platform), the Environmental Defense Fund, and Cascade Climate.
No other individual in the Trellison carbon capture portfolio sits at as many boundary points between academic research, commercial deployment, registry governance, NGO policy, and philanthropic funding. That is why he is the single highest-leverage first contact on the list.
Planavsky is a Packard Fellow, was part of the Yale-led team that received a $5M US DOE grant for enhanced mineral weathering and ocean alkalinity enhancement modelling, and is a recipient of Bezos Earth Fund support for AI-enabled MRV of geochemical carbon dioxide removal. He is also a frequent co-author with Christopher T. Reinhard (Georgia Tech), David Beerling (Sheffield), and the Hartmann / Renforth enhanced-weathering research community.
Selection through April 2026. Weighted toward the CDR-MRV and enhanced-weathering track relevant to proof-pack alignment.
Engaging Planavsky opens downstream conversations with multiple institutions where he already holds a seat:
The paper prescribes a set of transparency properties. The proof-pack schema and the LedgerWell verification stack are engineered to produce exactly those properties. We map:
| Reinhard & Planavsky 2026 prescription | Proof-pack / LedgerWell implementation |
|---|---|
| Open data on CDR methodologies | Methodology attestation record (per-tonne, source-traceable, signed) |
| Open data on dollar-per-ton costs | Cost decomposition schema: capex / opex / energy source + carbon intensity / feedstock / logistics / MRV cost |
| Standardised MRV protocols (cross-methodology comparable) | CVR framework — a methodology-neutral verification schema that maps onto ERW, DAC, OAE, soil, biochar |
| Counter to mitigation deterrence | Honest cost + scale reporting surfaces the gap between CDR claims and mitigation need; proof packs make the gap legible |
| Co-benefit quantification | Proof-pack co-benefit ledger: soil health, water quality, yield, biodiversity, community outcomes |
| Independent verification pathways | Proof-pack audit chain with third-party attestation hooks and replication packages |
| Policy / regulatory openness mandates (Verra, ICVCM, SBTi, CRCF) | Proof pack as an interoperability substrate: CCP labelling, VCMI claim codes, CRCF attestation mapping |
The same five co-authorship concepts detailed on Reinhard's profile apply — Planavsky is a first-named candidate on papers 1, 4, and 5. Two additional concepts are stronger with Planavsky specifically because of his Verra advisory standing and CREW wastewater focus:
Leverages Planavsky's scientific advisory role with Verra. Specifies how per-tonne proof packs interoperate with VCS (Verra's VM standards), VCU issuance metadata, and the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles labelling. Target: ICVCM or Verra white paper, or a commentary in Nature Climate Change.
Field-scale proof-pack deployment at a CREW Carbon site. Documents the wastewater-ERW workflow end-to-end: mineral input, flow monitoring, alkalinity measurement, ocean-export accounting, cost decomposition, co-benefits (nutrient removal, pH control). Target: Environmental Science & Technology.
Operationalises the Bezos Earth Fund AI-MRV grant thesis with a shared open-data benchmark hosted on proof-pack infrastructure. Bridges YCNCC's ML modelling with Trellison's data-layer. Target: Nature Sustainability or Nature Climate Change.
See also Reinhard's profile for papers 1 – 5 (jointly applicable).
He sits at more boundary points (Verra advisor, Ceezer advisor, EDF Senior Contributing Scientist, Cascade Climate, YCNCC steering committee) than any other researcher on our roster. His advisory role with Verra gives him standing to propose proof-pack schemas as registry-methodology enhancements — standing that cannot be acquired from outside.
Subject: A reference implementation for the radical-transparency agenda Dr. Planavsky, Your January 2026 npj Climate Action paper with Dr. Reinhard landed with us as a design specification rather than an opinion piece. At Trellison Institute we have been building a per-tonne open-data verification instrument — we call the artefact a "proof pack" — that tries to implement the framework you argue for: methodology attestation, dollar-per-ton cost decomposition, co-benefit ledger, independent-audit hooks. We would welcome a 30-minute conversation to show you the current alpha. We're not asking for endorsement; we're asking for methodology critique and, if it's useful to you, offering alpha access tied to a CREW Carbon deployment. Independent negative evaluations would be published alongside positive ones. A one-page methodology brief that maps your paper's prescriptions to proof-pack schema fields — with the gaps flagged honestly — is attached. With respect, Rob Stillwell Director, Trellison Institute
A one-page Trellison methodology brief that maps each paper prescription to a proof-pack field and explicitly flags the gaps — where the current implementation falls short of the paper's ambition. Honesty about the gaps is the reputational asset.
← Tier 1 — Integrity Critics · Reinhard profile → · Anchor publication
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