The world’s largest direct carbon removal (CDR) plant, capable of removing over 109,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, is currently under construction in Quebec, Canada. Equatic, the company behind this project, aims to enhance the ocean’s role as a carbon sink, helping to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Equatic has successfully demonstrated their technology at pilot plants in Los Angeles and Singapore.
Equatic’s approach to CDR involves running an electric current through seawater, splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen, with carbon stored in solid form. The process produces an acid and a base as byproducts. The alkaline water created is then used to absorb additional carbon from the atmosphere through cooling towers. The hydrogen generated can be sold or used to power the facility, making the process self-sustaining.
The plant being built in Singapore is expected to be operational later this year, with a capacity to handle 4,000 tonnes of CO2. Equatic’s commercial-scale project in Quebec aims to handle 109,500 tonnes of CO2 and produce 3,600 tonnes of green hydrogen annually. The company estimates an energy requirement of less than 1.4 MW per tonne of CO2 removed.
Oceans are crucial carbon absorbers, removing up to 25% of human-emitted carbon each year. Replicating Equatic’s technology on a larger scale could potentially remove billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, aiding in the fight against climate change. The company’s cost-effective method may bring the price of carbon removal down to as low as $100 per ton by the end of the decade.
Equatic ensures that their Singapore plant will include a seawater desalination system to filter out marine life before processing. Their innovative technology represents the world’s first commercial-scale implementation of direct carbon removal, offering a promising solution to mitigate the impacts of climate change.