Carbon Neutral Fuels with Direct Air Capture – Technical and BD Perspectives

Geoffrey Holmes.
Business Development Manager, Carbon Engineering, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Carbon Engineering is a Canadian company that has been working on atmospheric CO₂ capture since 2009. We’re now demonstrating our approach with a plant in Squamish that captures 1 ton of CO₂ per day. Capture of CO₂ from air, and recent improvements in the costs of renewable electricity, are opening up interesting opportunities to directly synthesize gasoline or diesel. CO₂ from air, and renewable hydrogen, could be combined to form liquid fuels that are ultra low-carbon or even carbon neutral on a life cycle basis, and at price-points in the coming years that could be economically viable. Further, opportunities to meet the thermal demands of air capture from biomass energy may prove interesting also. These approaches should prove interesting as we all evaluate pathways to reduce the carbon intensity of Canada’s energy systems and energy products. This talk will present these technical concepts, and will discuss some of the technical and business development challenges from the perspective of a technology developer.