Climate Engineers Building a Business from CO2 Removal

Climeworks Captures CO2 from Air with the World’s First Commercial Carbon Removal Technology. Direct Air Capture Plants remove CO2 from the Atmosphere to Supply to Customers and to Unlock a Negative Emissions Future.

Climeworks, the company start in Zurich in 2009, by Christoph Gerbald and Jan Wurzbacher, was inspired by Gebald's Master Thesis, when they attended ETH Zurich, a Swiss Technical University.

Climeworks applies an engineering perspective to the removal of Carbon Dioxide from Earth's Atmosphere. In June, when the first of the duo's Carbon Collecting Machines went Online, they became the First People to make money by De-Warming the Planet, Collecting CO2 directly from the Air and Selling it for use in Greenhouses.

Each CO2 Collector, called a Capture Plant, looks like a 7ft tall Box Fan with a tiny Jet Engine inside. As its Turbines sucks in Air, Chemical Filters isolate the Greenhouse Gas. It can then be pumped for use as is, but Wurzbacher and Gebald are hoping Customers will Pay them to Sequester it in the Ground, Permanently. The Founders like to cite the Findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says CO2 Storage will be an essential part of meeting Global Targets to Limit the Earth's Warming. Climeworks is on the leading edge on this, says Steve Bohlen, an Energy Technology Program Manager at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a Federal Research facility near San Francisco. In July, Bohlen cited Climeworks as a company to watch in Testimony on Carbon Capture Technology before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Environment.

Earlier this year the company secured its first Commercial Partner, contracting with a Local Farmer of Tomatoes and Cucumbers to Supply 900 Tons of CO2 per year to his Greenhouse, where it works as a sort of Gaseous Fertilizer, speeding up Photosynthesis. Climeworks' Founders say their near-term Goal is to Capture 1% of Global Carbon Emissions by 2025.

But the Grand Plan is to help Humans Remove more CO2 from the Atmosphere than they're pumping into it. We're insurance as the going gets tough, Wurzbacher says. The world will need affordable machines that can recork the CO2 genie on a massive scale, render it usable or harmless in storage. Working around the clock, each Capture Plant can Vacuum about 50 Tons of CO2 from the Atmosphere a year, Wurzbacher says. He and Gebald said Costs will fall rapidly once Production Ramps Up.

Some Costs, however, are tough to predict. Our biggest headache planning ahead is second-guessing politicians. Political support for climate protection is prone to wobble, Gebald says. Even so, we're witnessing an independent private-sector drive to curb CO2 that's resilient to politics. We're counting on a big role for Climeworks in the emerging carbon economy.

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