Carbon Engineering — Airminers Log 006
“We know the technology will work. Will it work well enough to convince a cohort of investors to bet on a first project?”
Carbon Engineering is an energy company that uses atmospheric carbon dioxide as a fuel source. They are based in Squamish, British Columbia, and their technology was recently published in the science journal Joule. Last year we had the opportunity to talk with Geoff Holmes, their head of business development. Carbon Engineering is one of the “big 3” companies commercializing technology that extracts carbon dioxide from the air for use, along with Switzerland-based Climeworks and United States-based Global Thermostat, whose Co-Founder Dr. Peter Eisenberger was also been interviewed by the Air Miners team.
The technology being developed by Carbon Engineering is founded in David Keith’s research at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Calgary, and Harvard University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University, where he conducts research on solar geoengineering. Carbon Engineering is currently operating an air-to-fuel plant in Squamish, British Columbia and on June 7 2018 published an article in the science journal Joule describing their findings.
Carbon Engineering has received funding and project support the United States and Canadian governments as well as private investors.
We are happy to share some bits of our conversation with you here.
Please direct inquiries to Carbon Engineering at info@carbonengineering.com or hello@airminers.org
Enjoy!
Why was Carbon Engineering created?
Carbon Engineering is focused on achieving net zero emissions. We have to balance the carbon cycle between the atmosphere and the lithosphere. Mitigating fossil emissions is hugely important, the kind of carbon neutral fuels we’re developing will be important, and negative emissions created by direct air capture with storage are going to be important too. We started with the mission to develop and commercialize Direct Air Capture. Since that time, we have demonstrated the technology with a system in Squamish British Columbia that captures 1 ton per day from the air and purifies it. In that time, we’ve become a lot more proactive in a concept we call air-to-fuels. This involves taking atmospheric carbon dioxide and combining it with hydrogen split from water with renewable electricity. The next step is to combine the two thermocatalytically to create liquid fuels, such as gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel. These are fuels that are very similar to what’s on the market today. They are very compatible with existing infrastructure and engines but they’re made without the use of crude oil. They have very low, if not zero, net fossil carbon emissions to the atmosphere. It’s another way to get renewable electricity into the transportation sector. We think that’s an exciting prospect.
What is your scale-up plan?
We’re adding a second phase to that plant that will produce hydrogen on-site and will combine the hydrogen and carbon dioxide to form fuels on site. It’s very small scale, one barrel of fuel per day. It’s all about testing, demonstration, generating intellectual property, and improving the technology. The reason we’re doing this at small scale is to prove out technologies that we hope to one day scale up to very large industrial facilities that do this for commercial reasons. Our plan is to build Direct Air Capture facilities capturing up to one million tons of carbon dioxide per year per facility. If we were to bury the carbon dioxide underground in an appropriate, secure geology, that negative emissions would be equivalent to taking 250,000 cars off the road. Alternatively, we could take that one million tons of carbon dioxide per year and feed it to fuel synthesis. With that carbon dioxide we could be producing 8,000 to 10,000 barrels a day of fuel. That quantity of fuel would displace the need for crude oil for 250,000 cars. Beyond that, the EPA runs the national renewable fuel standard. Oregon and British Columbia run similar systems to California, so we see an opportunity to scale up and provide clean, low-carbon fuels into these markets that exist today. Let’s try to break even by selling the fuel for commodity value. Then we can license the technology to other players as other states or nations own up to their Paris pledges and climate commitments.
How do you measure success?
Just being able to execute a first commercial project. That’s the litmus test for us. We know the technology will work. We need one more validation step, which is underway now, and we need a cohort of investors and partners to build a first commercial project. This is the challenge. The technology is ready to scale up, we have initial markets where leading Low Carbon Fuel Standard-style systems are applied — like British Columbia, California, Oregon — and now the challenge is to pull together early commercial projects. We need investors, fuel off-takers, and project developers to jump in.
What would be a big win in the next five years?
A huge watershed moment for us would be getting our first commercial plant operational. It would demonstrate a technology that’s potentially hugely scalable in the transportation fuels markets. Hopefully that empowers regulators and governments to push their systems even further, and push the incumbents to take a stake or get involved with deploying the technology.
ABOUT
The AirMiners blog exists to support the companies listed on airminers.org, the index of companies and projects mining carbon from the air. It catalyzes growth in the new carbon economy by bringing access to the economics of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which we call Air Mining.
Airminers.org is an initiative of Impossible Labs, Inc. a San Francisco-based innovation consultancy bringing climate-smart business opportunities into existence. As entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, and storytellers, Impossible Labs expedites the new carbon economy by translating climate science into commercial products. We are a for-profit, for-benefit company and consciously align our work with public benefit.
Want to work with us? Email us at hi@impossiblelabs.io
LINKS
[1] http://carbonengineering.com/
[2] http://www.climeworks.com/
[3] https://medium.com/airminers/log-post-004-global-thermostat-a18eb273e3aa
[4] https://www.seas.harvard.edu/directory/dkeith
[5] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30225-3
[9] https://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/irap/index.html
[10] https://www.energy.gov/energy-economy/funding-financing
