iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

It's 𝗢𝗰𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗣𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆 where I invite you to a 15 second ocean meditation with one of my photos or videos. Let's protect the beauty and abundance of our oceans!

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

This last part of our XXL Lysimeter Experiment is about plumbing, and it's not glamorous: keeping measurements trustworthy over years is harder than the chemistry itself. Our on-site rain gauge under-caught by nearly half against the official station. Anchor to an official reference, always.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

A soil-CO₂ sensor sounds like the ultimate shortcut. Weathering consumes CO₂, so bury a probe and read carbon removal straight out of the ground. Part 5 of our XXL Lysimeter Experiment shows why that's not how it works, and what these sensors are actually good for instead.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Alkalinity is the number we actually care about, and it's slow and expensive: pump the leachate, ship it to a lab, titrate. Part 4 of our XXL Lysimeter Experiment asks a more practical question: can a sensor buried in the soil, logging continuously, stand in for that lab work?

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Part 2 of our XXL Lysimeter Experiment left the leachate data flat. Part 3 turns to the buried sensors, and the picture changes.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Does more basalt mean more CO₂ removal? Our XXL Lysimeter Experiment says: not so fast. The intuition is a straight line. Spread twice as much rock, remove twice as much carbon. Over 1,400 days of our XXL Lysimeter Experiment, that line does not hold.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

1,400 days. Four winters. Twenty pots of basalt-amended soil. That's our XXL Lysimeter Experiment, and the treated pots removed no more CO₂ than the untreated controls.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Enhanced rock weathering has a problem that doesn't get talked about enough. It's not the science. The science works. It's that finding the right fields is slow and expensive, and verifying that the rock did its job can eat up nearly half of total project costs.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Want to use Claude as a proper co-editor in a shared Google Doc? I built a solution! Meet Remy, a skill for Claude 🐀. A free open-source plugin for the Claude desktop app and CLI. Remember the rat in Ratatouille who guides the chef's hands, invisible to the guests? dirkpaessler.blog/2026/08/03/r...

dirkpaessler.blog

Remy: Working in shared Google Docs with Claude made easy

Almost everything I write these days is written together with other people, in shared Google Docs — reports, papers, blog drafts. And for months there was one collaborator who couldn’t get in…

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Wastewater treatment plants produce CO₂ continuously — inside enclosed, monitored reactors — as a natural byproduct of breaking down organic waste. CREW Carbon uses that process to remove carbon instead of releasing it.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

What is the most important job of a CEO? I get asked this a lot. Here's my answer, after 20 years running Paessler:

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

In a desperate attempt to get my first AI agent to run reliably I tried to make it self-optimizing (after fighting with its unreliability for 6 weeks). I wrote a 10 page document (code name "Magna Carta") describing what the agent should and should not do.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Sixty years ago when we wanted to tell computers what we wanted them to do, we wrote machine code: literal CPU instructions. Then came BASIC. Then C, Java or Pascal (compiled code). Then Python and JavaScript (interpreted script languages).

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Weather show at sunset (Fürth, Germany)

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Last week, DVNE — the German Association for Negative Emissions — chose our greenhouse for their CDR Experience Tour. I was proud to give the welcome talk to our visitors, and we're publishing it now for everyone who couldn't be there.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

The speaker slides of the Carbon Drawdown Symposium (day 1) are now available on the event website: events.carbon-drawdown.de/p/symposium See the individual agenda items of the first day.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

The first day of the Carbon Drawdown Symposium is over. We heard about sophisticated scientific measurements and got a lot of new insights, including some new questions. Thanks to all speakers!!! 50 people were in the room, more than 240 people watched the presentations online.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Tomorrow we open the dataset. I've been working with this data long enough to know which findings I think will be straightforward and which ones will generate real debate.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗲𝘁 𝗭𝗲𝗿𝗼 𝗜𝘀 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗲 (𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗡𝗼𝘄) – 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗘𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽𝘀 𝗜 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝗹 At Carbon Drawdown Initiative, we've provided seed financing to more than 30 CDR startups. I fully expect some of them to fail. That's not a flaw in the strategy. That's the strategy.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Here is a question that took us a long time to get the right tools to answer: when enhanced rock weathering releases cations into the soil, where exactly do they go?

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Building a dataset that actually moves a field forward takes time. It means running experiments across different conditions, not just the ones that give you the results you're hoping for.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗲𝘁 𝗭𝗲𝗿𝗼 𝗜𝘀 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗲 (𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗡𝗼𝘄) – 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗦𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗠𝘆 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗢𝗩𝗜𝗗 𝗧𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗠𝗲 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗺 I have Long COVID. It limits what my body can handle. A 12-hour train ride to a conference isn't "choosing the planet" for people like me. It's physically impossible.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Building this diagram gave me an unexpected view of our CDR portfolio I'd never had before. Three large pathways are missing from our portfolio: BECCS, large-scale afforestation, and blue carbon. Together they account for a significant share of what most climate models assume by 2050.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

When people talk about carbon removal in enhanced rock weathering, the focus is usually on alkalinity. Rock weathers, cations are released, alkalinity forms, and eventually that alkalinity makes its way to the ocean where it holds carbon out of the atmosphere.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗲𝘁 𝗭𝗲𝗿𝗼 𝗜𝘀 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗲 (𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗡𝗼𝘄) – 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗦𝗶𝘅: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗡𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗲 Climate purists have a theory: if enough people visibly refuse to fly, it will become socially unacceptable. Like smoking indoors. Social norms shift, and eventually the whole culture follows.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

One of the things I have come to appreciate about working on enhanced rock weathering is how quickly a question that seems straightforward becomes genuinely hard when you start collecting real data.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗲𝘁 𝗭𝗲𝗿𝗼 𝗜𝘀 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗲 (𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗡𝗼𝘄) – 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗙𝗶𝘃𝗲: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟭% 𝗦𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼 Let me share some numbers that changed how I think about individual climate action.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

A fresh perspective on ERW – from someone brand new to the field. One of our interns just wrapped up two months at CDI and wrote about her experience with ERW.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

"No one is born a good CEO. I think people are basically born good founders. Being a founder is innate. They don't have to learn how to be a good founder. ... You do not want to learn on the job how to be a good CEO." says Brian Chesky, founder and CEO of Airbnb.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

In enhanced rock weathering, a lot of attention goes to the choice of rock. The mineralogy of the feedstock influences how fast it weathers, how much alkalinity is released, and ultimately how the carbon chemistry plays out. That is often the focus.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Over the past few years, we've been building what is likely the largest greenhouse experiment on enhanced rock weathering — multiple soil types, measurement approaches, growing seasons. I've been closely involved.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

It is absolutely nuts that air quality in doctors' offices is the worst of all categories in @aurel.indoorco2map.com's database of tens of thousands of crowd sourced data points. Shouldn't physicians know better? A waiting room is almost like a "virus exchange platform".

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗡𝗲𝘁 𝗭𝗲𝗿𝗼 𝗜𝘀 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗲 (𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗡𝗼𝘄) – 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗿: 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝘀𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗖𝗗𝗥 𝗜𝘀 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 Every time someone proposes carbon removal as a complement to flying or other emissions causing activities, the same objection appears: "That's just like medieval indulgences. Pay money, keep sinning."

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Flower power in the greenhouse: small strips, big impact. What if a few simple flower boxes could transform an entire greenhouse ecosystem? Our intern Tina vom Hagen shares her findings below.

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Dirk Paessler @dpaessler.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

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