Carbon Engineering is entering the race to suck carbon from the sky and turn it into automotive fuels by combining it with hydrogen from water. The company says in newly published research that it’s accomplishing the goal, and for less than one-third the cost of other companies working on the same technology.
“This isn’t a PowerPoint presentation,” said Steve Oldham of Carbon Engineering. “It’s real.”
In an article published in the journal Joule , Carbon Engineering outlines what it calls direct air capture in which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere through a chemical process, then combined with hydrogen and oxygen to create fuel.
“If these aren’t renewable fuels, what are?” said David Keith, professor of applied physics at Harvard University, lead author of the paper and principal in Carbon Engineering.
“We’re tapping into existing industrial equipment and then defining a new process and applying some unique chemistry to it,” said Oldham.
Carbon Engineering’s plant currently pulls about one tonne of carbon a day from the air and produces about two barrels of fuel. Since its components are off the rack, it should be easy to scale up, Oldham said.