Episode

The Crazy Rock Lady: How Eion is Turning Crushed Rocks into Climate Gold

Podcast
Business for Good Podcast
Published
May 15, 2025
Duration seconds
2381
Processing state
not_requested
Canonical source
https://businessforgoodpodcast.libsyn.com/the-crazy-rock-lady-how-eion-is-turning-crushed-rocks-into-climate-gold
Audio
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/businessforgoodpodcast/B4G_EP_166_Final.mp3?dest-id=761849
JSON
/v1/public/podcasts/business-for-good-podcast-641837/episodes/the-crazy-rock-lady-how-eion-is-turning-crushed-rocks-into-climate-gold
Markdown
/podcast/business-for-good-podcast-641837/the-crazy-rock-lady-how-eion-is-turning-crushed-rocks-into-climate-gold.md

Actions

  • POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/business-for-good-podcast-641837/episodes/the-crazy-rock-lady-how-eion-is-turning-crushed-rocks-into-climate-gold/transcription-requests
    Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
  • GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/business-for-good-podcast-641837/the-crazy-rock-lady-how-eion-is-turning-crushed-rocks-into-climate-gold.md
    Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

Summary

You've heard of carbon capture machines, but what if one of the most powerful tools for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere isn't high-tech at all—just crushed rock and rain? Meet Ana Pavlovic, CEO of Eion and the self-described "Crazy Rock Lady." Her company is pioneering a process called enhanced rock weathering, which uses the natural properties of a green volcanic mineral called olivine to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and lock it away—permanently. The best part? They do it on farmland, replacing conventional agricultural lime with olivine. The result is a two-for-one win: healthier soil for farmers and long-term carbon removal for the planet. It's nature's chemistry, accelerated—and rigorously measured using Eion's core technology, what they call a "soil fingerprinting" measurement technique. In this episode, Ana explains how Eion is turning geology into climate cash, why they're focusing on agriculture instead of oceans, and how they secured a $33 million carbon removal deal from Frontier, the coalition backed by Stripe, Shopify, and Meta. We also talk about farmer adoption, measurement challenges, and why Ana believes carbon removal can be both scientifically credible and scalable. So if you're interested in the wild new world of carbon markets, the surprising magic of crushed rocks, and what it takes to scale a climate startup from idea to impact, you'll dig this conversation. Let's rock. Discussed in this episode The 2020 Beerling paper : "Potential for large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands" Eion's $33 million deal with Frontier and its deal with Perdue . Eion's patent application for a soil fingerprinting verification technique Our 2022 episode on enhanced rock weathering with Kelly Erhart from Vesta. Ana recommends reading Min…