Read time: 5 minutes
Hi, I’m Javi Gascón.
This is Climate Tech Distillery, a newsletter where I talk about one specific climate tech company every week.
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Today we’ll distill a company that’s converting emissions into stable rocks underground in just 2 years: Carbfix 🇮🇸
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What Problem Does Carbfix Tackle❓
They deal with excess carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Even if we move to renewables and decarbonize the whole economy we will still need to take already emitted CO2 out of the atmosphere.
We are at 421ppm, we need to get back down to a safe level of around 300ppm.
After removing that CO2 from the air we can either store it or use it to make stuff. The second option is called Carbon Capture Utilization (CCU) and I already covered it here :)
So how is the emissions situation?
1. Regional Variations: Different regions have varying emission trends. For instance, while emissions in the EU and US are expected to decrease, emissions in countries like India are projected to increase significantly.
2. Sectoral Emissions: Emissions come from all sectors (power and heating, transportation, industrial activities, land use, etc.). Some of them are much harder to decarbonize than others so they will keep emitting for several years.
3. Alternative Solutions: Nature is great at storing CO2 (trees, oceans, mountains, etc.) but those processes take decades or centuries and in some cases (like a forest fire) the CO2 is released again.
Product / Service 📦
Carbfix has created an innovative carbon capture and storage solution that permanently mineralizes CO2 into stable carbonate minerals.
Technology: CO2 is captured/bought, dissolved in water and injected into porous basaltic rock formations, where natural processes accelerate the formation of stable carbonate minerals within two years.
Permanence: This method ensures permanent and safe storage of CO2, preventing it from re-entering the atmosphere.
Cost-effectiveness: The process is more cost-effective compared to many other carbon storage methods.
Scalability: The solution can be scaled up to handle large volumes of CO2, making it a viable option for industrial and commercial applications.
Simple Monetization: Companies that want to offset their emissions pay Carbfix for storing CO2 permanently. Ideally those companies should reduce their emissions but it’s very hard for some of them to go all the way to 0.
Market 🌐
The carbon capture and storage/utilization can only keep growing quickly. That’s because the amount of CO2 in the air keeps increasing and governments, companies and consumers are increasingly concerned about climate change. Removing CO2 is necessarily part of the solution.
The CCS market specifically is projected to grow at a significant CAGR of 21.37% from 2025 to 2034, reaching over $100 billion by then.
Other Key Players
Technically any company that makes money from offsetting emissions but if we focus more specifically on tech-driven carbon capture and/or storage solutions…here are some:
Aker Carbon Capture 🇳🇴: They provide CCS As A Service. Since the CCS value chain is so complex they help companies by taking care of the whole process. They charge per tonne of captured CO2.
Climeworks 🇨🇭: They are by far the largest Direct Air Capture company in the world. After sucking the CO2 directly from the atmosphere they send it to partners like Carbfix to store it. They also sell offsetting to companies themselves so they are both Carbfix’s partner and competitor lol.
Founding Story 🦄
Carbfix was founded in 2007 through a collaborative effort between several key entities. The idea was sparked when Professor Wallace S. Broecker from Columbia University, a renowned climate scientist, visited Iceland in 2006 to give a talk on climate change and the potential for CO2 mineralization in basaltic rocks. This presentation caught the attention of the then Icelandic President, Dr. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who invited Broecker to explore this concept further.
The founding partners of Carbfix included Reykjavík Energy, the University of Iceland, CNRS in Toulouse, and the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
The project was driven by the goal of developing a method to permanently store CO2 by dissolving it in water and injecting it into basaltic rocks, where it forms stable carbonate minerals.
This innovative approach has since been successfully tested and implemented in several locations across the world (mostly Iceland).
The company has raised over €139 million, partnered with massive clients like Microsoft, Shopify, and Climeworks.
Top Impact Stats 📈
1. Total CO2 Injected: Since 2014, Carbfix has injected 103,273.5 metric tons of CO2 into basaltic rock formations.
2. By 2031 their plants will be able to inject 3 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
3. They have published over 100 peer-reviewed studies on their technology and have received significant international recognition.
Whenever you’re ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:
Scale and optimize your climate business: I build low-code automation systems for climate companies so they can free up time to scale their revenues and their climate impact.
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