On a mission for net zero emission

We started with a simple observation: solar and batteries are already solved. They’re cheap enough that the market deploys them because it makes economic sense, and every new deployment drives the cost down further. This feedback loop, known as Wright’s Law, creates a self-reinforcing cycle where more scale leads to more progress. That flywheel is already spinning, and it will keep accelerating with or without us.

If you want to have marginal impact, meaning impact that wouldn’t happen otherwise, you need to work on a problem the market isn’t already solving. So we looked across other verticals of climate change, asking where small teams could make the biggest difference. That search led us to carbon removal.

Even in a fully decarbonized world, there will be emissions we can’t avoid, from sectors like cement, aviation, agriculture, and the legacy CO₂ already in the atmosphere. Reducing emissions isn’t enough. To reach net-zero, we also need to remove CO₂ from the air, at massive scale. This is known as Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), and it’s fundamentally different from emissions reduction (preventing CO₂ from being released in the first place) or avoidance (preventing emissions elsewhere).

Unlike solar or batteries, carbon removal lacks natural market incentives. Emitting CO₂ is still largely free, which means there’s no built-in economic signal to clean it up. The result is a massive gap: only about one million tons of CO₂ have been durably removed to date, while we need to scale up to 10 billion tons per year by 2050.

The biggest bottleneck is cost. Today, scalable durable carbon removal technologies cost between $500 and $1,000 per ton, far from the ~$100-200 per ton needed to unlock mass demand. To close the gap, we’ll need teams focused on building better technology and scaling it fast, so that carbon removal can move down the cost curve and up the adoption curve.

The good news is that we don’t have to wait for policy to start. The voluntary carbon market already exists, and there are buyers willing to pay a premium for carbon removal credits. This means we can start generating revenue today, while building the foundation for a much larger market.

And that market is coming. As costs fall and climate regulations mature, governments will introduce compliance markets for carbon removal. This shift is already in motion, with the EU expected to leverage the CRCF and introduce binding removal targets by 2028–2030, and Japan laying similar groundwork through its GX League. When compliance markets arrive, demand will explode.

Recap:

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• We’ll need massive amount of carbon removal to reach net-zero.
• Voluntary markets already exist to start today
• Cost reductions will enable regulatory mandates, exploding the market.
• Small, focused teams like ours can have an outsized impact.

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Game on.

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There are many ways to remove CO₂ from the air: through forests, oceans, soils, and more. We chose a different path: we use machines. It’s called Direct Air Capture.

The first reason is scalability. Machines can remove CO₂ using 1,000 times less land than forests, and they don’t compete with arable land. To meet climate goals using trees alone, we’d need to plant a new forest the size of Asia. which would be prohibitive. Forests matter: they support biodiversity, provide local cooling, and offer economic benefits. But the reality is they won’t be enough on their own.

The second reason is permanence. When we burn fossil fuels, the CO₂ stays in the atmosphere for centuries. To truly offset those emissions, we need to remove CO₂ and store it for just as long. That’s hard to guarantee with nature-based solutions. Trees can burn, rot, or be cut down. With Direct Air Capture, we control what happens to the CO₂ after it’s captured. We can inject it into rock formations like basalt or peridotite, where it reacts and turns into stone within a few years. Or we can store it in deep saline aquifers, sealed beneath impermeable layers of rock. Either way, it stays out of the atmosphere for more than thousands of years.

The third reason is verifiability. With Direct Air Capture, the entire process happens in a closed system, from the machine to the injection site, which means we can measure exactly how much CO₂ is removed and where it ends up. That level of transparency is critical. In the past, carbon credit markets were plagued by vague claims and poor oversight, damaging the reputation of buyers and slowing down progress. Today, customers are far more careful. They want hard evidence, not promises. Direct Air Capture gives them that confidence: clear data, rigorous tracking, and credits they can trust.

Some argue that machines come with their own emissions, and they’re right. Like all infrastructure, Direct Air Capture systems require energy and materials to build and operate. Even solar panels and wind turbines have a carbon footprint. What matters is that these emissions are accurately measured and subtracted from the amount of CO₂ removed. That’s why lifecycle analysis certified by independent third parties, is essential. Without it, the integrity of carbon removal claims can’t be trusted.

Most of the emissions from Direct Air Capture come from the energy it consumes. So the next question is: how do we power it?

A common criticism of Direct Air Capture is that it uses too much energy, and specifically, too much clean energy. That’s a fair point. If the process relies on fossil fuels, it risks doing more harm than good. DAC only makes sense in a future where clean energy is abundant and affordable. Fortunately, that future is already arriving. The global buildout of solar, wind, and batteries is accelerating faster than most people realize, and the trend is irreversible.

It’s also fair to ask whether we’ll ever have enough clean energy to power Direct Air Capture at climate-relevant scale. An upper-bound scenario puts DAC at removing 10 billion tons of CO₂ per year by 2050, roughly 20 to 25 percent of current global CO₂emissions. That would require around one terawatt of power, or the equivalent of a large solar farm 150 kilometers by 150 kilometers. It sounds massive, but in practice, this would represent about 10 percent of the clean energy expected to be built for the broader energy transition. Challenging, but entirely doable.

This still feels abstract to many people, because in most places, clean energy is still scarce. If a DAC plant consumes clean electricity, it might be taking power away from efforts to replace fossil fuels elsewhere. That’s a real concern. But the good news is that some regions already have more clean energy than they can use. Kenya, for example, gets over 90 percent of its electricity from renewables, and its geothermal plants are curtailing up to 30 percent of their production. Norway is another, with a grid that runs almost entirely on hydro. In places like these, Direct Air Capture helps put underused clean energy to work, turning wasted potential into permanent climate impact.

So while clean energy availability is a valid constraint today, it’s not a showstopper. It’s a siting question. There are already places where DAC can be deployed without taking power away from other decarbonization efforts. And as the solar and battery revolution continues, that list of places will only grow. Over time, abundant clean energy will stop being the exception and become the norm. DAC is built for that future, and it gives us a way to start making progress now.