Air, Cleaner: Pilot Plant Economically Captures CO2

A Canadian-based clean energy company is economically employing Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology to scrub CO₂ from the air and convert it into fuel.

Air, Cleaner: Pilot Plant Economically Captures CO2

It might not be the “greenhouse gas” you’re thinking of and that’s a good thing, thanks to Carbon Engineering (CE), a Canadian-based clean energy company. CE is privately owned and includes Bill Gates among its roster of high-profile investors. In a nutshell, CE is focusing on Direct Air Capture, “DAC” for short, as an economical and effective way to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. Even better, the harvested greenhouse gas can then be processed into clean fuels.

Air, Cleaner: Pilot Plant Economically Captures CO2

CE’s pilot plant in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada has been running for about three years – enough time for researchers to quantify what practical DAC has done and can do moving forward. The plant doesn’t look like much – its most notable physical aspect is a long building stuffed with several dozen huge fans. When other, similarly-designed plants are added to the mix, however, they could collectively capture 1 million tons of CO₂ annually. A published, peer-reviewed paper also shows that DAC can remove CO₂ from the air at a cost of under $100 per ton. Since DAC has been held back by high costs in the past, CE’s technological breakthrough demonstrates, for the first time, that scalable and cost-effective solutions for atmospheric CO₂ capture are possible.

Air, Cleaner: Pilot Plant Economically Captures CO2

Add in the benefits of clean fuel production, and CE’s proven DAC technology could be the basis of a “net zero” world where affordable, clean energy doesn’t contribute to deleterious climate change – global warming, that is. The research team that proved the economic practicality of CE’s DAC technology was led by David Keith, a Harvard Professor who founded CE. The peer-reviewed paper was published by Joule, a leading scientific journal dedicated to ground-breaking energy research.