Climeworks Taps Svante to Deliver Direct Air Capture Technology for New Hubs

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Climeworks and Svante, a carbon capture and removal solutions provider, have penned an agreement to bring Svante’s contactor blocks to Climeworks’ planned megaton direct air capturing hubs in the United States.

The agreement comes after Climeworks was selected by the Department of Energy to develop three direct air-capturing hubs -- in Louisiana, California, and North Dakota. The company is eligible for $600 million in U.S. government funding to develop the hubs.

Direct Air Capture Technology

Direct air capture technology permanently stores carbon dioxide and has been floated as a solution for hard-to-decarbonize industries. The Regional Direct Air Capture (DAC) Hubs program from the DOE aims to develop these hubs and demonstrate the technologies at scale with the potential for capturing at least 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. The program has $3.5 billion in funding available, stemming from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act.

Direct air capture is also gaining ground around the world, with the United Kingdom recently setting up a new global market over the next several years to create a market for companies to build carbon capture facilities and sell their services globally.

In particular, the steel industry has begun to leverage carbon capture and storage technologies to offset their heavy emissions. And more direct air capture facilities have come online in the U.S. recently. The technology has been criticized by some environmentalists who say direct air capture does not include solutions that directly address fossil fuel use or reduce emissions.

Climeworks’ Upcoming Hubs

Climeworks operates the world’s only commercial DAC facility combined, which is located in Iceland, with storage installation in operation, and modular CO2 collectors designed for scalability, the company said. By teaming up with Svante, it will be able to deliver the new hubs in the U.S. and scale up.

“We are focusing on the massive growth of our carbon removal technology to create climate impact,” Jan Wurzbacher, co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks, said in the announcement. “Svante is one of the key players in the ecosystem to support us in our journey to scale to a gigaton capacity.”

Svante is currently building its commercial filter manufacturing facility, The Centre of Excellence for Carbon Capture and Removal, in Vancouver, Canada. Filters are critical in DAC technology in the process of removing carbon from the ambient air. Svante anticipates its deal with Climeworks will take over much of its capacity, and has therefore partnered with an additional coating capacity partner, 3M.

“Delivering large-scale direct air capture required us to approach this collaboration with flexibility on the development of project specifications while retaining rigorous accountability for the success of the overall project,” Claude Letourneau, president and CEO of Svante, said in a statement. “The combination of our advanced technologies represents a significant step forward in the nascent direct air capture industry, playing a critical role in meeting the world’s net-zero ambitions.”

Environment + Energy Leader