AspiraDAC, an Australian early-scale carbon removal company, has launched with endorsement from global financial infrastructure company, Stripe, via Frontier.
AspiraDAC has been selected to be part of Frontier’s first round of carbon removal purchases, following the announcement earlier this year that Frontier’s members would spend US$925 million on carbon removal over the next nine years, to stimulate and accelerate the development of carbon removal technology.
AspiraDAC – a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate Carbon – is working in partnership with innovative Australian start-up Southern Green Gas under an exclusive collaboration agreement to produce and deploy the project’s solar-powered modules by the end of 2022.
“With Southern Green Gas pioneering this technology – harnessing Australia’s incredible solar power resource and world-class storage reserves – we are currently completing the demonstration phase of this project and are looking to enter the construction phase later this year,” AspiraDAC executive director Julian Turecek said.
“What Frontier sees in AspiraDAC is the enormous potential in the range of technology developments we are ready to scale in the carbon removal sector. This carbon offtake agreement demonstrates a resounding global market endorsement for solar-powered DAC technology, and a deep understanding that reducing emissions must go hand in hand with emission removal, as evidenced by the IPCC if we are to meet projections to address climate change.”
Turecek said the DAC solar-powered modules are at the heart of the Frontier agreement and will be a global first-use of this technology.
“This agreement is highly significant as it is part of Frontier’s Spring 2022 carbon removal purchase round – continuing to demonstrate their prominence and extensive due diligence as global leaders in carbon removal purchasing.” Turecek said.
The Frontier advisory panel of 19 scientists and industry experts reviewed over 26 applications from five continents, to align with AspiraDAC and five other global providers.
Nan Ransohoff, who leads Frontier, said:
“Getting durable carbon removal to gigaton-scale will likely require a diverse portfolio of approaches that have a path to low costs,” Frontier leader Nan Ransohoff said.
“AspiraDAC’s low temperature heat requirements, path to affordable material costs, and modular design will allow for a more distributed scale-up, and make this approach highly promising.”
AspiraDAC and Southern Green Gas are currently working on the world’s first solar-powered DAC project of one tonne per day, or 310 tonne per annum, which has been made possible by funding from the Australian government’s Carbon Capture Use and Storage Development Fund (CCUS).
“Australia’s abundant solar energy potential means it is a perfect location for DAC, and with the use of solar-powered modules the facility can operate independently of traditional energy sources,” Turecek said.
“Additionally, the compact nature of DAC facilities means production can capture equivalent CO2 emissions using less than 90 per cent of the land needed in reforestation carbon capture projects.
“It is not without challenges, DAC technology is in its nascent stages, and agreements with customers such as the Frontier group will catalyze further development of the sector,” Turecek continued.
“This will increase our ability to bring down the costs per tonne of carbon to a competitive level to take removal to a megatonne scale within the next decade, and gigatonne scale the decade following.”
AspiraDAC is delighted to be applying Australian ingenuity and innovation to the world’s most pressing problem in reaching net zero by no later than 2050.
“This is truly an Australian success story – there is no doubt early support of DAC requires strong vision and investment, but the opportunities being realised here today can see this become a trillion-dollar industry globally.” Turecek said.
To learn more about this project, go to www.aspiradac.com/