PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 11, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Healthy Climate Alliance (HCA) announced today a collaboration between Blue Planet Ltd. and Engineer Jim Aldridge to produce a Direct Air Capture (DAC) prototype that will capture and concentrate excess CO2 in the atmosphere.
Blue Planet Ltd. has developed an economical and scalable system that converts CO2 into building materials like concrete—sequestering it permanently. This DAC method could provide an additional CO2 source for Blue Planet’s mineralization process.
This DAC prototype, which leverages technology pioneered by Dr. Klaus Lackner, holds the potential to supply CO2 from the air for Blue Planet’s current process. Utilizing a resin to absorb CO2, the 7-foot-tall prototype will be easier to operate and use less energy than existing DAC technologies.
“This could be the breakthrough we need to fix the climate, to reverse global warming. That’s huge,” said Peter Fiekowsky, Co-Founder and President, Healthy Climate Alliance. “This collaboration provides a pathway to removing all excess CO2 from the atmosphere.”
The differentiators from other DAC technologies:
- Syncing DAC with the Blue Planet process requires only moderately concentrated CO2 - this has an existing potential market for 20 billion tons of CO2 per year, hundreds of times larger than the next largest CO2 market;
- This low-cost DAC, working with the Blue Planet process allows the sequestered CO2 to be sold profitably with little or no public funding required.
- Other DAC methods are tuned to CO2 applications (e.g., carbonating soda, pumping oil, creating jet fuel) which require nearly pure CO2 - this is far more expensive to generate than Blue Planet’s DAC; also
- Those application markets don't permanently sequester CO2, so the associated DAC methods don’t actually restore the climate.
Every project that aims to reverse atmospheric damage represents a concrete step towards HCA’s mission: to restore the climate by reducing the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere from 410 parts per million to 300 parts per million by 2050.
“Alongside reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, Direct Air Capture is an important piece of the puzzle in reversing climate change and restoring a healthy climate,” said Fiekowsky. “Helping Blue Planet utilize CO2 from the air demonstrates a process that could profitably remove all excess CO2 from our atmosphere. This partnership is emblematic of my vision for the HCA: uniting experts and facilitating partnerships to affect real climate restoration. Increasing the scope of Blue Planet’s operations brings us much closer to achieving our CO2 concentration targets.”
“We’re looking forward to the opportunity to demonstrate that our system is not restricted to any particular source or concentration of CO2, and direct capture from Earth’s atmosphere has the potential to add a significant additional means of reducing atmospheric CO2, and can be applied anywhere, rather than being restricted to an industrial point source of CO2 emission,” said Dr. Brent Constantz, CEO, Blue Planet.
“When we designed the DAC machine our goal was a product that was easily scalable and simple to manufacture in millions of units,” said Jim Aldridge, Engineer. “We accomplished that goal along with the capability to test out multiple resins and ribbon fabrics. We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with both Blue Planet and the Healthy Climate Alliance.”
With support from the HCA, Blue Planet will display its DAC prototype at the Global Climate Action Summit on September 12-14, 2018 in San Francisco. The Direct Air Capture prototype will also be showcased at the Climate Tech Entrepreneurs Show & Tell on September 11 from 6:30-8:30pm at the Y Combinator Office.
About Healthy Climate Alliance
The Healthy Climate Alliance (HCA) is a non-profit education, networking, and advocacy organization. HCA’s global dialogue unites the public, policy-makers, and technical and business experts to promote the shared goals of reversing global warming and restoring a healthy climate. HCA encourages achievable solutions for the reduction of excess carbon dioxide from our atmosphere and restoring Arctic ice by 2050. HCA, led by physicist and longtime climate advocate Peter Fiekowsky, is committed to restoring the climate for our children.
Find more at www.healthyclimatealliance.org.
About Blue Planet
Blue Planet, a Silicon Valley company, has developed one of the only carbon capture systems that removes carbon dioxide from the flue gas of large stationary industrial emitters that is economically viable and can be deployed at commercial scale rapidly. Blue Planet will target natural gas and coal-fired power plants, steel mills, cement plants, and aluminum refineries. The process converts carbon dioxide captured from these dilute flue gas streams to carbonate for mineralization as a synthetic limestone (CaCO3). The synthetic limestone can replace the natural mined limestone as the principal constituent of concrete, permanently sequestering the captured carbon dioxide. The mined rock market represents one of the largest at over 50 GT every year, making Blue Planet’s solution to curbing global carbon levels scalable and economically viable. Blue Planet is led by an experienced management team with background in power, construction, green building, technology development, project development, carbon utilization, and government policy. Find more at www.blueplanet-ltd.com
About Jim Aldridge
Jim Aldridge is a Senior Engineering Manager and entrepreneur. His career spans 35 years in Silicon Valley working in over 25 technology companies (with 10 being start-ups) directing engineering projects. He has led successful product developments for small and large established companies in fiber optics, telecommunications, semiconductor equipment, medical equipment, robotics and renewable energy generation. Jim has spent his spare time since 2009 in the Clean Tech Open as a team member and mentor.
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