Announcing Heirloom
Geoeng Info
Announcing Heirloom
A low-cost approach to direct air capture via mineralization
All across the world, from the azure pools of Turkey and Oman to the travertine terraces of Yellowstone, our planet quietly pulls carbon dioxide from the air and turns it to stone. For eons, Earth has relied on this process to balance its carbon cycle. What if it could be harnessed? What if we could do it faster, in larger quantities, and at a low enough cost to make it an effective tool in the fight against climate change?
Today we are excited to announce Heirloom, a company dedicated to harnessing and accelerating carbon mineralization to help restore balance to our atmosphere. By 2035, our direct air capture technology will permanently remove billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere and store it safely and permanently underground.
We are optimistic that, together with the growing climate community of activists, advocates, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, and global citizens, we can help curb climate change and shape a world that’s more resilient, equitable, and prosperous for everyone.
The case for carbon dioxide removal
Over the last several years it has become clear that decarbonization is a necessary but insufficient ingredient to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 °C. Decades of inaction have resulted in there no longer being a credible path to prevent runaway climate change without removing a large chunk of the trillion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. It’s not an either-or; we need to stop generating new emissions and remove those already in the atmosphere.
The market has responded, and the demand for high-quality carbon removal is growing rapidly. Voluntary buyers are already purchasing carbon credits to offset their emissions to the tune of billions of dollars per year. Compliance markets like California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme provide blueprints for the $100B+ carbon markets to come. The trend is overwhelming — globally, an increasing percentage of emissions are subject to regulation, at higher prices, year after year. If humankind is going to remove tens of gigatons of carbon each year, the industry will be one of the largest in history. The companies that can do it profitably will be some of the biggest we have ever known.
Unfortunately, existing carbon dioxide removal solutions, and direct air capture, in particular, are too expensive to scale. Today, the words “direct air capture” conjures visions of kilometer-long walls of industrial-grade fans, drawing enormous quantities of energy, and forcing air through highly-engineered sorbents. At Heirloom, we’re building a system that significantly simplifies this vision.
Anton Alferness
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Peter Flynn
I don’t call myself a DAC expert, but I will offer some comments.
The test for competition between DAC technologies will ultimately be $/ton. This will be affected by the capture technology and the storage or usage process that follows capture.
When I read this announcement, I have some resentment of its marketing bumpf:
Unfortunately, existing carbon dioxide removal solutions, and direct air capture, in particular, are too expensive to scale.
Heirloom does not have data to support this, nor do they present, in this announcement, their own cost figures.
Next:
Today, the words “direct air capture” conjures visions of kilometer-long walls of industrial-grade fans, drawing enormous quantities of energy, and forcing air through highly-engineered sorbents.
Please spare me this type of language. Visions of kilometer-long walls….ooooh…..but wait, I drive past refineries, power plants, and water treatment plants today, and soon past (gasp) kilometer-long rows of wind turbines or solar panels. Not to mention (gasp) even longer lines of power transmission towers. This kind of heuristic claim is no substitute for the tough work of demonstration and hard analysis of cost and impact.
Do I hope mineralization is cheap and effective? Of course. But trying to push to the head of the pack based on emotive arguments is inappropriate. Try this instead: do the work, report the results.
Peter
Peter Flynn, P. Eng., Ph. D.
Emeritus Professor and Poole Chair in Management for Engineers
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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Pol Knops
Dan Miller
Greg Rau
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/CarbonDioxideRemoval/e0d6ac521de54c94e5f49156d8c3d198%40mail.gmail.com.
Institute of Marine Sciences
Univer. California, Santa Cruz
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Greg_Rau
Co-founder and manager, the Carbon Dioxide Removal Google group
Co-founder and CTO, Planetary Hydrogen, Inc.
510 582 5578
Albert Bates
Among the benefits of the lime process is that you are cascading products and services to pay production cost and turn a profit. For instance, getting Heirloom or DAC down to $150/200 ton puts it in line with biochar production now, but biochar has multiple cascade possibilities in electricity, agriculture, building materials, water filtration, animal probiotics, electronics, and consumer goods. As I understand it, Heirloom proposes to mine Magnesium-Carbonate (using mechanical energy), calcine it (using thermal energy), collect and store the CO2 (using amide scrubbers that require more energy to clean and recycle (?) and then needing condensation/transportation energy to store), spread the highly reactive MgO on land (using transportation and mechanical energy), let it absorb CO2 and become Magnesium-Carbonate again (passive), then rinse and repeat (using energy to pick up and transport back).
Tough to imagine this being cost-competitive with any process that co-generates carbon commodities at a profit, and with all the energy required it will be interesting to see how carbon negative it will be.