Plan Sea: Ocean Interventions to Address Climate Change

Plan Sea: Ocean Interventions to Address Climate Change

Plan Sea is hosted by Wil Burns, Co-Director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University, and Anna Madlener, Senior Manager for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) at the Carbon to Sea Initiative. As co-hosts, Wil and Anna invite guests to the podcast each episode to discuss potential ocean-based climate solutions, particularly approaches that lead to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere. The podcast scrutinizes risks and benefits of these options, as well as matters of governance, community engagement, ethics, and politics.

Episodes

May 28, 2026 59 mins

In this episode of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Carbon to Sea’s Senior Manager for Communications Danny Gawlowski record from Carbon to Sea’s 2026 Annual Convening in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. They sit down with Fawn Sharp, and Francesca Hillery, and Ken Paul for a conversation on Indigenous knowledge systems, ocean climate solutions, and the future of ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE).

In this episode, Anna an...

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In this episode of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Dr. Wil Burns sit down with Dr. Gabby Kitch and Anu Khan from the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative (CRSI) —  a nonprofit organization using science and policy to unlock carbon dioxide removal (CDR) opportunities —  to break down their recently published roadmap, Our Coasts, Resiliency, and Carbon Dioxide Removal. The report identifies three coastal resili...

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In this special video edition of Plan Sea, host Anna Madlener and Carbon to Sea’s Senior Manager for Communications, Danny Gawlowski, record from the Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) in Glasgow, Scotland. They sit down with members of the COMPASS mCDR Communication Leaders program —  Dr. Abigale Wyatt, an ocean modeler from [C]Worthy, Dr. Mariam Swaleh, who leads the Ocean Climate Innovation Hub in Kenya, and Dr. Kohen...

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In this edition of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns are joined by Frank Rattey and Dr. Thorben Amann of Planeteers — a Hamburg-based carbon removal startup researching alkalinity-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches — to discuss the science behind their closed-system pathway, their first field tests, and the national regulations guiding ocean-climate research.

Dr. Thorben Amann is the Research and Dev...

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In this episode of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns sit down with Professor Dr. Alexander Proelss, Chair in the International Law of the Sea and International Environmental Law, Public International Law, and Public Law at the University of Hamburg, to discuss the current state and recent developments of international legal frameworks regulating ocean-based carbon dioxide removal (oCDR). Alexander discusses the need for i...

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In this episode, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns are joined by Dr. Grace Andrews and Kristi Weighman of Hourglass Climate — a leading nonprofit researching ocean-based carbon dioxide removal (oCDR, also known as mCDR ) methods like ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) — to discuss the launch of the Framework for Ecotoxicological Modeling of mCDR (FEMM). This project explores how ecotoxicological modeling and existing st...

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In this episode of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns sit down with Stefano Capello, CEO and founder of Limenet — an Italian startup focused on limestone-based ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) and net-zero lime production — and Sara Groppelli, a PhD researcher at the University of Milano-Bicocca studying the impact of Limenet’s approach on phytoplankton communities. Stefano discusses Limenet's journey f...

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In this episode of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns sit down with researchers Dr. Leila Kittu, Dr. Giulia Faucher, and Dr. Charly Moras to discuss the latest updates from the Ocean Alk-Align consortium’s exploration of ocean alkalinity enhancement’s (OAE) environmental safety and efficiency. Representing expertise from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research and the University of Hamburg, Leila, Giulia...

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In this episode of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns sit down with Dr. Phil Renforth and Dr. Mijndert Van der Spek of Heriot-Watt University to unpack their newly published, harmonized framework for evaluating the viability of ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) pathways. Moving beyond lab-scale assumptions, their approach integrates techno-economic analysis (TEA) and lifecycle assessment  (LCA) to allow the explorati...

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In this episode of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns dive deep into the new Biogeosciences special issue focused on the environmental safety of ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE). This episode’s guests are Dr.Lydia Kapsenberg and Dr. Tyler Cyronak who helped edit the special issue. Compiling more than 20 studies, the special issue serves as a “one-stop shop” of the latest peer-reviewed science on th...

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In this edition of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns kick off season three of the podcast with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) researchers Dr. Adam Subhas and Jennie Rheuban to discuss the LOC-NESS project — a small-scale, open-ocean research trial on ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE). The project’s co-principal investigators join Anna and Wil to recount the process of receiving a first-of-its-kin...

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In this edition of Plan Sea, co-host Anna Madlener sits down with co-host (and one of this week’s guests) Wil Burns, Dr. Terre Satterfield from the University of British Columbia, and Dr. Chris Pearce from the UK’s National Oceanography Center. Burns, Satterfield, and Pearce are some of the lead authors on a new  report launched at the 2025 UN Ocean Conference, “Principles for Responsible and Effective Marine...

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In this edition of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns sit down with Kyla Westphal and Dr. Mallory Ringham from Ebb Carbon to discuss Project Macoma — the company’s pilot ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) study being conducted in Port Angeles, Washington this summer. A first-of-its-kind endeavor, Project Macoma aims to remove up to 1,000 tonnes of  CO2 from the atmosphere using Ebb Carbon’s elec...

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In this edition of Plan Sea, host Anna Madlener is joined by Na’im Merchant, host of The Carbon Curve podcast and Executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada, for a special co-hosted episode of the two podcasts. Recorded live at the Carbon to Sea 2025 Annual Convening, Anna and Na’im speak with Lennart Bach, Associate Professor and ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) scientist at the University of Tasmania, to share insi...

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This episode of Plan Sea was recorded live at the Ocean Visions Biennial Summit 2025, and features conversations with experts from Ocean Visions, UArctic, and WHOI to discuss their work in the ocean-climate nexus. Host Anna Madlener is joined again by special co-host, Danny Gawlowski, Carbon to Sea’s Senior Manager of Communications and Policy. Listen to Part One of Plan Sea’s coverage of the Ocean Vision Biennial here.

...

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This episode of Plan Sea was recorded live at the Ocean Visions Biennial Summit 2025, and features conversation with Ocean Visions CEO Brad Ack and other attendees to discuss their work in ocean-based carbon dioxide removal (oCDR). Host Anna Madlener is joined by a special co-host, Danny Gawlowski, Carbon to Sea’s Senior Manager of Communications and Policy.

Guests on this episode include: 

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In this edition of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns are joined by Drs. Sara Seck and Neil Craik to discuss the current governance and public funding landscape for ocean-based carbon dioxide removal (oCDR) research and innovation in Canada. They focus particularly on jurisdictional challenges in Nova Scotia, related to an increase in oCDR R&D in the province over recent years, and discuss broadly how to strengthen fut...

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In this episode of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns are joined by several guests to discuss new initiatives to improve data management and transparency in the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) industry. Jacki Long is an ocean scientist and co-founder of Submarine Scientific, a scientific consulting company focused on ocean modeling, expert verification support, and system wide strategy development for ocean-based carbon dioxi...

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January 10, 2025 53 secs

Hey listeners, we want to hear from you!

What 2024 milestone in the world of carbon removal should we be celebrating?

And what do you hope to see in the marine CDR field in 2025?

Leave us a quick voice message at www.speakpipe.com/planseapodcast

It only takes a few seconds, and you could be featured in our next episode. 

Thanks, and happy new year! 

Plan Sea is a semi-weekly p...

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This new episode features two OAE researchers and their insights from conducting field research as well as a special request to you, our listeners!

In this edition of Plan Sea, hosts Anna Madlener and Wil Burns are joined by two leading ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) researchers: Dr. Jaimie Palter from the University of Rhode Island’s School of Oceanography and Dr. Dariia Atamanchuk from Dalhousie University&rsquo...

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