Spiritus | "Carbon Orchard" hopes to innovate carbon capture in Wyoming

"Carbon Orchard" hopes to innovate carbon capture in Wyoming

CHEYENNE — Another company has announced intentions to capture carbon dioxide directly from the air and inject it for permanent storage in underground geologic formations in Wyoming.

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Direct air capture (DAC) is a relatively new technology that has been criticized for being inefficient and expensive. But San Francisco-based Spiritus, which announced its plans for a “Carbon Orchard” on Tuesday, said its will be different.

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White orbs the size of a tennis ball are positioned in the open air. They are filled with a material, called a sorbent, that acts as a sponge that passively absorbs carbon dioxide from the air over a few hours. The sorbents are then transported back into the main capsule, which Spiritus calls a “tree,” to remove the CO2 so that it can be transported and injected underground. This removal is done by heating to less than 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The “fruit,” which Spiritus calls the sorbent units, are then transported back to the outside of the tree on a conveyor belt to repeat the process.

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The technology was developed by scientists at Los Alamos National Lab.

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The project, called Orchard One, will be in central Wyoming, and is expected to send 2 million tons of CO2 underground every year.

Renderings of the “trees” in the Spiritus “orchard”. An orchard is the whole facility, a “grove” removes 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide form the atmosphere annually and a “tree” is one silo-like structure in the “grove”.

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Currently, this process costs between $600 and $1,000 to remove one ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. Spiritus, along with a handful of other DAC startups, claims they will reduce that cost to below $100, making DAC a more affordable and efficient technology to address the climate crisis.

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Is it efficient?

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Some DAC companies estimate it takes between 2,000 and 2,400 kilowatt-hours of energy to capture one ton of CO2, equivalent to about a fifth of the average U.S. home’s annual energy consumption.

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Producing 2,400 kilowatt-hours of energy currently emits about one ton of CO2 into the atmosphere, meaning some current DAC projects are expensive, carbon-neutral investments at best, unless it relies on renewable energies.

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Spiritus co-founder and CEO Charles Cadieu said the cost of its sorbent is one-tenth the cost of other DAC sorbents, it will use less than half the energy of what others use, and construction of its facilities will be one-quarter of the cost of existing DAC facilities.

A Spiritus sorbent, called "fruit," that absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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He also said he wants the facility to run solely on renewable energies, such as wind and solar, specifically leaning into curtailed energy — excess renewable energy that is not delivered to customers.

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If the cost estimates are true and the energy goals realized, Orchard One may be a truly carbon-negative and affordable facility.

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Is it affordable?

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According to the company’s application for funding from Frontier, Spiritus estimated that it can eventually reach a capture rate below $75 per ton of CO2. The true numbers from the company’s testing have yet to be publicly released, but Cadieu said he is confident they can meet their goals.

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“We’ve gone through extensive diligence with Frontier ... which is a group of buyers of Google, McKinsey, JP Morgan, Stripe, Shopify, and they employ experts in this area of direct air capture, and they put us through the wringer. We’re validating the technology and seeing how it stacks up,” he said.

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Corporations and businesses may purchase carbon credits from Spiritus to remove carbon on their behalf. Even though the company may be based anywhere in the world, they can count the credits toward their net-zero emission goals.

Spiritus solid sorbent units, called “fruit”, in collectors within a “tree”.

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“With carbon removal using direct air capture, anyone that emits anywhere on Earth that has a problem with getting to net-zero, we ... can remove the CO2 for them in Wyoming, and they can then pay us to do that for that facility in Wyoming. So, a local project here is going to have global impact and a global customer base.”

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Existing carbon pre-purchase customers include Frontier (founded by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta and McKinsey), Watershed and individual citizens via Terraset.

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Spiritus will also receive funds from the government through tax credits under Section 45Q. For DAC, companies may receive $180 for every ton of CO2 captured and stored in the ground. Once fully operational, the facility will sequester two megatons, or two million tons, of CO2 every year.

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Two megatons of CO2 is equivalent to the emissions of 340,000 pickup trucks annually. However, scientists estimate that up to 10 billion tons of CO2 will need to be removed annually from the atmosphere by 2050 to meet global net-zero emission goals.

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Of course, DAC is not the only technology to contribute to carbon removal. There is also carbon capture, utilization and storage, and natural removal through reforestation. In the International Energy Agency’s net-zero emissions by 2050 scenario, DAC technologies must capture more than 85 million tons of CO2 by 2030 and around 980 million tons by 2050. This would require a large and accelerated scale-up from about 10,000 tons captured by DAC today. If the price to capture one ton of CO2 is reduced to $100 and remains there, it would take nearly $100 billion worth of investment to meet the 2050 goal.

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Why Wyoming?

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Supporters of DAC technologies say that investment at a large scale today is necessary to reduce costs and increase efficiency through continued innovation. Wyoming and Gov. Mark Gordon have been some of the nation’s biggest supporters of the technology.

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Since August 2023, Gordon has distributed more than $57.6 million in support of eight carbon capture projects across the state. Wyoming is also home to the potentially largest DAC development in the world in Sweetwater County, Project Bison, which announced earlier this month that it has met an $80 million funding round goal.

Near the location of the Spiritus “Orchard” in Central Wyoming.

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For Cadieu, the three most attractive factors in Wyoming are the people, the geology and the permitting environment.

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“We are looking to heavily leverage local resources, which have extremely strong oil and gas background and labor resources,” said Mindy Ren, head of carbon removal infrastructure for Spiritus. “So, from the skill set perspective, we can translate our skill hours into our project very directly.”

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The geology of Wyoming allows ample, safe underground storage for CO2, and the state is one of only three to have primacy over Class VI well permits — meaning it has permission to distribute permits to inject and store CO2 underground, rather than having to go through the federal government.

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Spiritus has not yet applied for a Class VI permit, but officials are hopeful they will be approved and operational by 2026.

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“We had some early conversation with the state, with the company, etc. All have received a very favorable and supportive feedback and gesture,” Ren said. “So, (we’re) extremely excited about coming to Wyoming.”

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Charles Cadieu founded IQ Engines, which was acquired by Yahoo!/Flickr, and Caption Health, which was acquired by GE HealthCare. He has raised over $75 million for startups through leading ventures, like Khosla Ventures, and non-dilutive funders, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Mindy Ren was hired by Spiritus in December. She has a background in infrastructure management and has previously held positions leading onshore and offshore construction for ExxonMobil, managing engineering, procurement and construction for Tesla’s California battery facilities and overseeing the execution strategy and planning efforts for hyper-scale data center projects at Meta.

Rewind.earth

Biomass carbon removal and storage

Tel Aviv, Israel

R&D

Rewind.earth uses cranes off of boats to sink agricultural and forest residues to the oxygenless bottom of the Black Sea, the largest anoxic body of water on Earth. Oxygenless water dramatically slows biomass decomposition. The lack of living organisms in the Black Sea limits any potential ecosystem risks. This process allows for affordable and environmentally safe carbon removal.

Carboniferous

Biomass carbon removal and storage

Houston, TX, US

R&D

Carboniferous sinks bundles of leftover sugarcane fiber and corn stover into deep, salty, oxygenless basins in the Gulf of Mexico. The lack of oxygen in these environments–and therefore absence of animals and most microbes–slows the breakdown of biomass so it is efficiently preserved and stored durably in ocean sediments. The team will conduct experiments to determine the functional stability of sunken biomass as well as the interaction with ocean biogeochemistry.

Vycarb

Ocean alkalinity enhancement

Brooklyn, NY, US

58 tons

Vycarb uses a reactor to add limestone alkalinity to coastal ocean water, resulting in the drawdown and storage of atmospheric CO₂. Their dissolution system has a novel sensing apparatus that base tests water, dissolves calcium carbonate, and doses alkalinity into the water at a controlled amount safe for dispersion. Their closed system makes it easier to measure the amount of dissolved alkalinity added and CO₂ removed.

Arbon

Direct air capture

New York, NY, US

173 tons

Arbon uses a 'humidity-swing' process to capture CO₂ from the air. The sorbent binds CO₂ when dry and releases it when wet. This process uses less energy than approaches that rely on changing temperature and pressure to release CO₂. The sorbent’s ability to bind CO₂ has been shown to remain stable over thousands of cycles. Both of these innovations could reduce the cost of DAC.

Vaulted

Biomass carbon removal and storage

Houston, TX, US

1,666 tons

Vaulted injects organic waste into durable wells, where the carbon in the waste is sequestered as it decomposes. Using a specialized slurry injection technology, their process can handle a wide range of organic carbon sources with minimal energy and upfront processing. Their system has the potential to be deployed quickly at large scales.

Spiritus

Direct air capture

Los Alamos, NM

713 tons

Spiritus uses a sorbent made from commercially-available materials and a passive air contactor that requires little energy to capture CO₂. The CO₂-saturated sorbent is then regenerated using a novel desorption process, capturing the CO₂ and allowing the sorbent to be reused with less energy than a higher-heat vacuum chamber typically used in direct air capture approaches. The high-performance, inexpensive sorbent and lower regeneration energy provide a path to low cost.

Planetary

Ocean alkalinity enhancement

Nova Scotia, Canada

937 tons

Planetary harnesses the ocean for scalable removal. They introduce alkaline materials to existing ocean outfalls like wastewater plants and power station cooling loops. This speeds up the sequestration of CO₂ safely and permanently as bicarbonate ions in the ocean. Planetary then verifies the removal through advanced measurement and modeling techniques.

Mati

Enhanced weathering

US and India

1,513 tons

Mati applies silicate rock powders to agricultural fields, starting with rice paddy farms in India. These rocks react with water and CO₂ to produce dissolved inorganic carbon that is subsequently stored in the local watershed and eventually in the ocean. Mati relies on rice field flooding and higher subtropical temperatures to accelerate weathering, and extensive sampling and soil and river modeling to measure removal and deliver co-benefits to smallholder farmers.

Holocene

Direct air capture

Knoxville, TN, US

332 tons

Holocene captures CO₂ from air using organic molecules that can be produced at low cost. In the first step of their process, CO₂ is captured from air when it comes into contact with a liquid solution. In the second step, a chemical reaction crystallizes the material as a solid. That solid is heated up to release the CO₂, minimizing energy wasted in heating water. Holocene’s process runs at lower temperatures, further reducing the energy required, increasing energy flexibility, and lowering overall cost.

EDAC Labs

Enhanced weathering

Baltimore, MD, US

317 tons

EDAC Labs uses an electrochemical process to produce acid and base. The acid is used to start the recovery of valuable metals from mining waste, and the base is used to capture CO₂ from air. The acid and base streams are then combined to produce metals that can be sold for applications such as batteries, and solid carbonates, which permanently store CO₂.

CarbonRun

Ocean alkalinity enhancement

Nova Scotia, CA

1,291 tons

CarbonRun enhances the natural ability of river currents to weather abundant, low-cost limestone and reduce river acidity levels. This benefits river ecosystems locally and enhances the rivers’ ability to capture CO₂ from the atmosphere. Rivers, which are natural carbon transport systems, then deliver CO₂ to the ocean for permanent storage in the form of bicarbonate.

CarbonBlue

Direct ocean removal

Haifa, Israel

400 tons

CarbonBlue uses calcium in a closed-loop cycle to mineralize, separate, and remove dissolved CO₂ from water. This results in a pure stream of CO₂ that can be durably sequestered. Their approach can operate in freshwater or saltwater and can rely on waste heat for the regeneration process. The team plans to integrate with desalination plants and other water-withdrawing industries, reducing energy usage and costs.

Carbon Atlantis

Direct air capture

Munich, Germany

275 tons

Carbon Atlantis is using a process known as electrochemical pH-swing. Their system uses a solvent to capture CO₂ and an acid to release it. This approach is inspired by recent innovation in Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cells and electrolyzers, making the process both cost-effective and energy-efficient. The CO₂ is then run through

Banyu Carbon

Direct ocean removal

Seattle, WA, US

360 tons

Banyu Carbon uses sunlight to capture CO₂ from seawater. A reusable, light-activated molecule that becomes acidic when exposed to light causes carbon dissolved in seawater to degas as CO₂, which is then stored permanently. Because only a small portion of the visible light spectrum is needed to trigger the reaction, this is a highly energy-efficient approach to direct ocean removal.

Alkali Earth

Enhanced weathering

Northfield, MN, US

1,351 tons

Alkali Earth uses alkaline byproducts from industrial processes as carbon-removing gravel to apply to roads. These minerals act as a sink for atmospheric CO₂, storing it permanently while cementing road surfaces. The formation of CO₂-containing minerals within the gravel can be directly measured, leading to high-confidence in resulting removals.

Airhive

Direct air capture

London, UK

943 tons

Airhive is building a geochemical direct air capture system using a sorbent that can be made out of cheap and abundant minerals. This sorbent reacts rapidly with atmospheric CO₂ when mixed with air in Airhive’s fluidized bed reactor. Coupled with a regeneration process that’s powered by electricity to release the CO₂ for geologic storage, this provides a promising approach to low-cost DAC.