- Heirloom carbon capture plants will scale up nascent carbon removal technologies and hit global climate goals.
- Heirloom facility, which uses crushed limestone to capture 1,000 metric tons a year, is part of a ramp-up that Heirloom says will cut costs.
California climate technology company, Heirloom today unveiled its first U.S. commercial direct air capture (DAC) plant to suck planet-warming carbon dioxide from the air. It is a milestone in the effort to scale up nascent carbon removal technologies and hit global climate goals. Scientists expect the world to remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually. Direct air capture, such as Heirloom, can secure the CO2, but it is not yet clear whether it can do so at a price that makes the technology practical.
Also, a person familiar with the situation said the new facility, which uses crushed limestone to capture 1,000 metric tons a year, is part of a ramp-up that Heirloom says will cut costs. Current industry prices for carbon removal by direct air capture are around $600-$1,000 a ton. Some of Heirloom’s first sales for capture and storage in 2021 were more than $2,000 per ton. The U.S. government aims for $100 a ton in about a decade.
After visiting the site, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said, “We’ve got to scale. Scale is the only way we’ll be able to move that quickly.” The new plant, about an hour and a half from San Francisco Bay in Tracy, California, has tall stacks of trays holding limestone open to the air. The rock naturally absorbs CO2, and Heirloom has treated it to do so in a few days. Furthermore, rock that has captured CO2 is heated with renewable energy to release and reuse the gas.
Heirloom works with the startup Carbon Cure to store the gas from the new plant in concrete. The Department of Energy is spending billions in grants to build direct air capture demonstration hubs. Heirloom is one of the winners of the largest tier grant. In addition, BlackRock Inc, the world’s biggest money manager, said it will invest $550 million in Occidental’s West Texas plant.