Then, as now, scientists had to identify the issue before global pressure for change increased as the implications of a world with higher radiation levels on the ground became clear. But without a viable alternative coolant for refrigerators or air conditioners political and societal demands had limited traction. But necessity was the mother of invention for fridges and so it is proving for CO2.
Cemex, a Mexico-based cement maker, said through Cemex Ventures corporate venture capital unit it had agreed with Carbon Clean, a UK-based provider of low-cost modular carbon dioxide capture and separation technology, to find a solution for the cement industry below the line of $30/ton cost of CO2 captured.
Gonzalo Galindo, head of Cemex Ventures, said: “Accomplishing CO2 capture at an industrial scale and affordable cost is one of the biggest challenges that Cemex is facing in its road to deliver net-zero CO2 concrete products globally by 2050.”
Aniruddha Sharma, CEO of Carbon Clean, which is backed by a host of corporate venturing units following a $22m round in July, added: “We are confident that this partnership and the operating experience of Cemex will help us bring down the cost of carbon capture to just $30/ton of CO2 captured by 2021, which will help accelerate take-up of the technology across the cement industry and beyond.”
Sharma is talking at next week’s GCV Digital Forum and will be followed by a series of emerging sustainability entrepreneurs that presented to corporate venturing judges yesterday at the GCV Connect powered by Proseeder awards. (Today’s pitch day, moderated by Ken Gatz, CEO of Proseeder, covers financial and deep technology another sector looking to collaboration between incumbents and startups to effect change, according to a panel at the American Bar Association’s annual event.)
Other corporations are rapidly following with their own carbon capture strategies, with oil major ExxonMobil and Global Thermostat expanding their joint development agreement to captures CO2 directly from the air.
Global Thermostat’s CO2 capture uses proprietary amine-based adsorbents to remove CO2 from the air, which can then be stored underground or used to make chemicals, consumer products or construction materials. But scaling up often requires national support. Norway will finance NKr16.8bn ($1.8bn) out of an estimated total investment of NKr25.1bn for the world’s first full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project covering a cement factory and a waste incineration plant – around 400,000 tons of CO2 emissions in total – stored under the sea by a joint venture between oil majors Equinor, Shell and Total.
Minister of Petroleum and Energy Tina Bru said [via Offshore Engineer]: “Building bit by bit in collaboration with the industry has been important to us in order to be confident that the project is feasible…. We will cut emissions, not progress.”
