What are Carbon Capture Companies and what do they do? Put simply, the goal is to capture CO2 pollution from a smokestack or from the sky, which you can use to create new products, like carbon capture concrete, carbon capture diamonds, clean fuel, coral reefs, furniture and industrial products. The goal and prototypes have been around for a while, but one of the big eco wins over the last couple years is that big prototypes are working and we have the first companies in the world making billion dollar investments to make it happen.
At this year's Future Festival World Summit, Trend Hunter had the pleasure of hosting the woman who is arguably the carbon capture leader, Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental. She was on our stage to explain the new science, the technology, the urgency, and her carbon capture company's new project: a $1 billion Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant that literally sucks CO2 from the sky. This is the largest of such projects by roughly 1,000x, and Vicki Hollub has revealed that she actually intends to build 135 of these DACs.
On our stage, I had the chance to interview Vicki Hollub, and also to present her with one of our first Trend Hunter Innovation Strategy Awards. The category: Most Ambitious Challenge, for her work becoming the carbon capture leader.
The analogy I used to describe Direct Air Capture companies was this: imagine if your house was on fire. You would not want to reduce, reuse or recycle. Those are band-aid solutions. If your house was on fire, you would want to REVERSE the problem. Well, I believe our planet is on fire, and Direct Air Capture Companies exist to REVERSE the problem.
On our stage, Vicki Hollub talked about how they have measured that our atmosphere has 50% more CO2 in it, compared to before the industrial revolution. She explained how this is causing climate catastrophes and how we need to reverse the problem. But then, she also uplifted us, explaining how Occidental's carbon capture technology works, and what it can be used for. On Trend Hunter, we have covered dozens of the different use cases, which you can see linked on this article, but the feat that has not been accomplished, globally, is getting the actual CO2 from the sky in meaningful quantities.
For me, the inspiring part of Direct Air Capture plant (DAC) is that it is a goal to clean the sky. In contrast, many of the other carbon capture companies are trying to pull carbon dioxide from factory smokestacks. That's good, but certainly not as exciting as directly pulling even more CO2 from the atmosphere. Reduce... Reuse. Recycle... REVERSE!
If you want to know more about Vicki Hollub and Occidental's Direct Air Capture Company, check out 1pointFive, which is Occidental's key holding company for carbon capture programs.
Carbon Capture Companies
Occidental and Vicki Hollub's Ambitious Plan to Clean The Sky
Trend Themes
1. Direct Air Capture Plants - Direct Air Capture (DAC) plants aim to suck CO2 from the atmosphere to create new products and clean fuel and there is a large market for companies who invest in this technology.
2. Carbon Capture Use Cases - There are many potential ways to use captured CO2 such as concrete production, diamond creation, and industrial product creation which creates disruption opportunities in various industries.
3. Reverse Climate Change - Direct Air Capture companies are not only focused on reducing but reversing problems by cleaning the sky and creating innovative solutions to a growing issue.
Industry Implications
1. Construction - Carbon capture concrete can provide a sustainable building material that is competitively priced with traditional concrete creating disruption opportunities for the construction industry.
2. Jewelry - Captured carbon can be used in the creation of diamonds, providing an opportunity for jewelry companies to enter a larger sustainable jewelry market.
3. Renewable Energy - Direct Air Capture plants could provide a sustainable and efficient source of clean fuel to power industries and create scalable solutions for renewable energy.