We aim to radically reduce the cost of carbon capture. By providing low cost and easily verified carbon credits to companies and governments with ambitious climate goals, we seek to avoid the worst environmental impacts of climate change and hasten the transition to a net-zero carbon economy.
The Problem
To keep global temperature below dangerous levels, billions of tons of CO2 will have to be removed from the air each year starting by 2030. Yet, available direct CO2 removal capacity is 10,000x smaller than this need. Rapidly scaling up and deploying carbon removal is a massive technical challenge, the moonshot of this century, but it also represents a major new market.
Our Solution
Seawater naturally concentrates CO2 from the atmosphere. Emissions could be from a delivery truck, a flying airplane, a power plant, or a cargo ship; in each case the surface ocean acts like a sponge for this CO2. For most of the surface ocean, removing carbon from seawater withdraws a commensurate amount of CO2 from the atmosphere because of rapid equilibration (on the timescale of months).
Direct CO2 Removal with Light. Our process is designed to use light from the sun or energy efficient LEDs to drive a chemical reaction that causes CO2 to be released from seawater. This CO2 can be stored in geologic formations or used by industry. The organic compounds at the heart of our process are easy to synthesize from simple starting materials and contain no rare or toxic metals.
Founders
Co-founders Julian Sachs and Alex Gagnon are professors of chemical oceanography at the University of Washington. Combined they have >130 peer-reviewed publications, have managed research projects worth millions of dollars, and have both presented before the National Academies of Science. Alex (PhD Chemistry, Caltech) is an NSF CAREER awardee and has shared his research with President Obama. Sachs (PhD Chemical Oceanography, MIT) is an organic geochemist and climate scientist with decades of experience leading climate & geochemistry field programs.
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