Red Trail Energy LLC

Audit Analysis

A DAC geologic sequestration project with VVB-confirmed additionality, independently verified storage, and no reversal events, but with notable gaps in permanence safeguards (no buffer pool stated), leakage treatment (deemed negligible in the PDD but not addressed in the verification report), and social safeguards (FPIC, grievance mechanism, and benefit sharing claimed in the PDD but absent in the verification report). The ERR figures are internally consistent between claimed and verified values, and the project uses renewable energy, but the absence of a lifetime ex-ante estimate and a project-specific baseline limit confidence in long-term claim integrity.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠No buffer pool percentage stated in any available document for a project claiming 100-year permanence in geologic storage
• ⚠Leakage is deemed negligible in the PDD (Nov 2023) but the verification report (Nov 2025) records it as not addressed, creating an unverified gap in the leakage treatment
• ⚠FPIC, grievance mechanism, and benefit sharing are described in the PDD (Nov 2023) but the verification report (Nov 2025) confirms none of these are in place, indicating a material gap between design and implementation
• ⚠No lifetime ex-ante ERR estimate found in the extracted record, preventing a pro-rata over/under-delivery assessment

Credit Vintages Exhausted