UK clean energy technology firms have set up a joint venture to build and operate Europe’s biggest direct air capture project.
Carbon capture technology developers Airhive and Mission Zero Technologies have joined forces with Progressive Energy, a developer of low-carbon energy projects, to build a direct air capture (DAC) facility on Teesside, south of Newcastle, Bloomberg reports.
The new venture, named UnionDAC, expects to begin removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from air in 2030. Two years later, the venture plans to directly capture 60,000 tons of CO2 annually at the plant.
The UK has all the requirements to be a leader in direct air capture and other carbon-removing technologies, the top executives of the three firms told Bloomberg in interviews.
The UK is well-positioned to capitalize on the opportunity thanks to the CO2 transport infrastructure currently under development in the country, including on Teesside, and the favorable geology of the East Irish Sea and the North Sea for storage, Airhive’s chief executive, Rory Brown, told Bloomberg.
If the project moves as planned and begins operations in 2030, the Teesside facility would be Europe’s biggest direct air capture project.
Currently, the biggest planned such project is Mammoth in Iceland, led by Switzerland-based Climeworks AG. Mammoth will be capable of sucking up to 36,000 tons of CO2 annually.
According to Climeworks co-CEO Christoph Gebald, carbon removal needs more buyers and supportive regulation to help the technologies scale up.
“For carbon removal, this would be the difference between a sector-financed project by project and one financed as bankable industrial infrastructure,” Gebald wrote in a recent blog post.
Globally, U.S. oil giant Occidental and its subsidiary 1PointFive last year received U.S. federal permits for the STRATOS Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility, currently under construction in Ector County, Texas. Once complete, it is expected to be the largest Direct Air Capture facility in the world, designed to capture up to 500,000 tons of CO2 per year.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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