A new carbon removal factory is starting to extract CO2 from the air and store it permanently in an industrial park in North Las Vegas, close to a trash storage facility and an Amazon warehouse.
The first “integrated” plant of its sort in the United States, Project Juniper manages both carbon capture and storage in one location. (In addition, it produces clean water.) The new plant was designed by Clairity Tech, the firm that created it, following a seed round of funding last year that was sponsored by Initialized Capital and Lowercarbon Capital. Last week was the first time the facility’s entire equipment was used after several months of setup.
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After working at SpaceX on rocket and spacecraft propulsion tests, founder Glen Meyerowitz switched to carbon removal in 2022. “In my opinion, this is the most pressing issue that requires attention and the existential threat of our time,” he states. Massive CO2 removal from the atmosphere must occur concurrently with the decarbonization of the economy if the world is to have any chance of achieving its climate goals. Meyerowitz recognized a chance to approach the market a little differently than some other businesses when he conducted research.
First, Clairity extracts CO2 from the atmosphere using a separate substance. According to Meyerowitz, it belongs to the same family as baking soda. “Millions of tons of the materials are produced annually for various applications.” It is inexpensive, plentiful, and requires comparatively little energy to remove once it has been loaded with CO2. It can be utilized for a longer period of time because it doesn’t break down like certain other compounds used for direct air capture.
The plants don’t need to run constantly to be profitable because they are inexpensive to construct. This implies that using inexpensive, sporadic solar energy from the grid is also feasible. (The disclaimer: The business will face competition from data centers that wish to use renewable energy sources as well and might be prepared to pay more.)
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Although many space businesses intend to inject CO2 into subterranean wells, the U.S. system is not yet ready. Clairity is beginning in a different way by incorporating CO2 into materials. For instance, it can be used to create lower-carbon concrete when mixed with fly ash, a byproduct of coal power plants. Heirloom, a startup, has already worked with a cement manufacturer, so it won’t be the first direct air capture company to employ CO2 in concrete. However, Clairity is distinct in that it manages both processes on its own. To preserve the CO2 indefinitely, it can also be put into other waste products.
Building the company’s “ex-situ” mineralization equipment costs less than $70,000, whereas digging an underground storage well costs millions of dollars and requires a lengthy regulatory approval process. Although it’s on a far smaller scale, it enables the business to start storing right away. Meyerowitz asserts, “We can deliver credits today and not from some future project.” Selling value-added items instead of only storage credits has the potential to increase revenue.
This year, the company anticipates being one of just two facilities worldwide to offer verified credits for carbon sequestered. Climeworks, located more than 4,000 miles away in Iceland, collaborates with a business named CarbFix to inject its captured CO2 into the country’s deep rock formations, where it will naturally transform into stone.
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There are several reasons why Clairity decided to start in Vegas. Initially, the specific sorbent that it employs to absorb the CO2 is most effective in arid environments (others, such as Climeworks’s, are more effective in humid environments). Renewable energy is widely available in Nevada. There are more possible sites because the state has very little agricultural land; the business intends to grow in Nevada and other southwestern states. Additionally, there may be a market for selling the clean water produced by the company’s operation to nearby utilities. (The water is created when the business warms its sorbent to release the CO2 that has been gathered; it is released simultaneously and stored separately.) Meyerowitz explains, “You can imagine that in water-stressed Las Vegas, that’s a really interesting side benefit.”
It is currently functioning on a very small scale. Considering that civilization produced about 40 billion tons of CO2 last year, Project Juniper can absorb 100 metric tons of CO2 annually. The current cost of Clairity is about $700 per ton of CO2 captured; this cost must drastically drop in order to be viable in the long run. (Currently, federal tax credits assist with the cost; because to strong Republican support, they may remain in place longer than some other climate-related incentives.) Notwithstanding the difficulties, Meyerowitz thinks the firm may grow to a lofty target: removing 10 megatons of CO2 over the course of the next ten years, which is 100,000 times more than its initial objective.
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