US tech firm launches first commercial facility to capture Carbon Dioxide from the air for permanent storage

EnergyDay with agency reports

The United States based technology company, Heirloom Carbon Technologies, has opened its first commercial facility dedicated to capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the ambient air for permanent storage, aligning with the country’s efforts to combat climate change while facing criticism for potentially delaying the clean energy transition.

Bloomberg in a report stated that the Heirloom’s facility, unveiled Thursday, will be capable of removing and storing as much as 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

It further revealed that the plant built by Bay Area startup Heirloom Carbon Technologies, near San Francisco, puts California at the forefront of the emerging carbon removal industry as a handful of so-called direct air capture (DAC) hubs are also slated to get underway.

EnergyDay gathered that Heirloom Carbon Technologies is also planning to build other bigger plants in Texas and Louisiana soonest, while Bloomberg affirmed that the faciliity in Califonia is enough to serve as a milestone for a technology that’s likely to spawn a significant business.

The report stated that the JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. are among the companies that have pledged hundreds of millions to buy carbon removal services, even as critics warn the industry will give oil producers an excuse to keep pumping crude.

Heirloom raised $53 million in a 2022 Series A round from investors including Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures. While Heirloom declined to disclose the price tag to build the California facility, the company aims to operate at a cost of $100 per ton of carbon removed by 2030 — a price points the young industry currently isn’t close to reaching.

The report further suggested that US President Joe Biden’s administration is throwing its weight behind the technology, too.

In August, the US Department of Energy announced the first wave of projects that won some of the $3.5 billion in funding for developing DAC hubs around the US.

Though the Tracy facility is not a recipient of those dollars, Heirloom is part of one of those projects and its technology will be deployed at a major hub in Louisiana the government expects will remove 1 million tons of CO2 a year by the end of the decade.

Heirloom and other DAC companies can also receive tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, Bloomberg revealed.