The globe likely breezed past 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels this year, crashing through the 2016 Paris Agreement’s aspirational targ

Heirloom Carbon raises $150M to remove CO2 from the air using rocks

submited by

Style Pass

2024-12-23 15:30:03

The globe likely breezed past 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels this year, crashing through the 2016 Paris Agreement’s aspirational target. Further warming increases the risk of catastrophic consequences, including more frequent extreme droughts, floods, and fires; stronger hurricanes; faster-spreading infectious diseases; and declining wildlife and fish populations. A host of carbon-capture startups hope to reverse this trend by removing large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.

One of those startups, Heirloom Carbon, announced on Wednesday that it had raised $150 million in Series B funding to help scale up its carbon-removal technology.

The startup is betting that by building bigger and capturing more carbon, it can bring down the cost to remove each metric ton of CO2, which currently runs from $600 to $1,000, according to the company’s own estimates. Heirloom expects industry-wide prices to drop to $200 to $300 per metric ton by the early 2030s, company spokesperson Scott Coriell told TechCrunch.

That’s still far more than the $100 per metric ton that experts say is the sweet spot to make carbon capture a viable industry, although Coriell added that the company is “on a trajectory” to hit that price over the long term.