Great observation - somewhere between most-to-all of the CO2 that goes into beer, food production, etc ends up back in the atmosphere. Our initial model is the first key step towards the additional solutions we're designing to remove carbon from the atmosphere.
The use of CO2 that is sourced from the atmosphere is better from an environmental perspective than the use of CO2 sourced from offshoots of an ethanol plant. In the current supply chain, each ton of CO2 that goes into a product results in a new ton being introduced into the atmosphere + any emissions required to purify and move that ton from the point of production to the point of consumption.
With CO2 produced from the atmosphere, no new tons are introduced to the atmosphere in the production of that same product, and the energy (aka emissions) required to capture that ton from the atmosphere are low since the cooling tower is already operating, so we don't need to use additional energy to perform the capture.
Direct CO2 sales is a much faster way to start having an environmental impact via direct air capture than doing combined capture + sequestration. Most new carbon sequestration projects take years to permit and construct, and this path allows us to perfect the technology of capturing carbon from the sky while working on these sequestration projects in parallel.
We also intend to convert CO2 into other useful products down the line that result in more permanent sequestration - we have some team members with expertise in green chemistry and electrochemical CO2 reduction, and we're already starting to think about how to achieve these things at scale.
The use of CO2 that is sourced from the atmosphere is better from an environmental perspective than the use of CO2 sourced from offshoots of an ethanol plant. In the current supply chain, each ton of CO2 that goes into a product results in a new ton being introduced into the atmosphere + any emissions required to purify and move that ton from the point of production to the point of consumption.
With CO2 produced from the atmosphere, no new tons are introduced to the atmosphere in the production of that same product, and the energy (aka emissions) required to capture that ton from the atmosphere are low since the cooling tower is already operating, so we don't need to use additional energy to perform the capture.
Direct CO2 sales is a much faster way to start having an environmental impact via direct air capture than doing combined capture + sequestration. Most new carbon sequestration projects take years to permit and construct, and this path allows us to perfect the technology of capturing carbon from the sky while working on these sequestration projects in parallel.
We also intend to convert CO2 into other useful products down the line that result in more permanent sequestration - we have some team members with expertise in green chemistry and electrochemical CO2 reduction, and we're already starting to think about how to achieve these things at scale.