Heirloom Carbon Technologies is a startup that has built the first operational commercial plant in the United States to utilize direct air capture, a groundbreaking method of vacuuming greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. This facility in Tracy, Calif., is housed in an open-air warehouse in the Central Valley. Here, 40-foot-tall racks hold hundreds of trays filled with a white powder, which absorbs carbon dioxide from the air to fight climate change. The company plans to expand this process to remove millions of tons of carbon dioxide annually and is currently selling carbon removal credits to companies like Microsoft.
The process involves heating limestone to 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing the carbon dioxide to be released and then pumped into storage tanks. The remaining calcium oxide is doused with water and exposed to open air on large trays where it absorbs carbon dioxide, then turns into limestone again after three days, restarting the process. This white powder can be mineralized into concrete or buried underground to permanently store the carbon dioxide.
Despite the expensive nature of direct air capture, some companies are willing to pay the premium, including Microsoft, which is using engineered carbon removal to go carbon negative by 2030. However, the Department of Energy is working to increase confidence in the market by investing $35 million in carbon removal credits from 10 different providers.
Heirloom has dedicated its efforts to ensuring that their carbon removal technologies are not used to support the production of fossil fuels, unlike other oil companies pursuing similar technology. This is an absolute prerequisite to ensure their innovations aid in mitigating the environmental impact rather than perpetuating the existing problem.
