🔎 What’s going on?
Carbon capture startup Climeworks raises USD 75 million (CHF 73 million) in equity (shares) from private investors. This is the largest ever private investment into direct air capture technology.
💭 Cool, tell me more!
Climeworks have developed technology that captures carbon dioxide from the air and removes it permanently. They do this with specially made carbon collector machines, which uses a fan to draw in air. Each collector has a special filter material (made of cellulose fibre) that absorbs carbon to its surface. Once the filter is full of carbon dioxide, the collector is closed and the carbon is released through high temperature. The pure carbon dioxide is then collected for storage.
There are many ways to store this carbon, including turning it into products. Climeworks have partnered with an Icelandic carbon storage company, Carbfix. Carbfix takes the carbon dioxide collected by Climeworks machines and mixes it with water and pumps it deep underground (usually basalt rock formations). Through natural mineralization, the carbon dioxide reacts with the basalt rock and turns into stone within a few years.
The Climeworks machines are powered by geothermal energy (which is a renewable source). Founded in 2009, the company has raised USD 124 million (CHF 120 million) in total so far. The money will be used to scale the technology and the business model.
❓Why should I care?
As a reader of theblueplanetpost, you know an emissions gap exists (we talked about it last week), this means we currently have just two options: 1) reduce carbon emissions and/or 2) remove carbon from the atmosphere. There are three ways of removing carbon out of the sky: plant-based (through plants such as kelp farming or reforestation), mineral-based (weathering rocks naturally e.g. olivine) and chemically (direct air carbon capture). Climeworks provides a chemical solution to permanently remove carbon.
🚦 Where do we need to be?
If we are to limit global temperature to 1.5C, then firstly we need to emit no more than 420 Gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Secondly, we need to start removing carbon from the atmosphere. Based on the latest research, we need to remove 10-15 gigatons of carbon per year from the atmosphere until 2050. And then scale the removal to 20 gigatons of carbon until 2100.
👤 What can I do about it?
Start supporting carbon removal technologies such as Climeworks, which are mostly privately funded and usually under-funded. As a business, you can support them by investing directly - get in touch here. Alternatively, check out Nori, which is a carbon removal marketplace.