One of the biggest carbon removal facilities in the US is closing in on a final investment decision to triple its capacity.
Graphyte — backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures — takes plant waste from paper and timber mills, farms, and other facilities and converts it into solid bricks that can be buried underground, thereby taking the carbon that the plant photosynthesized while alive. The company opened its first facility in Arkansas last year, and has so far sequestered about 5,000 tons of CO2, CEO Barclay Rogers told Semafor.
As demand for carbon removal credits soars — global sales are up threefold in the past 12 months — Graphyte believes it can compete for sales, at about $100 per ton, to cater to major buyers like Microsoft and JP Morgan, even though its technology doesn’t qualify for US carbon removal tax credits. Its existing facility can process up to 14,000 tons per year; within the next two to three weeks, Rogers said, the company will “almost certainly” commit to an expansion that will bring its capacity to 45,000 tons. It is also planning new sites in British Columbia and Arizona to sequester carbon from trees cut down in the process of thinning forests for wildfire management.
