America's First Carbon Capture Plant Opens In California: Reports

TRACY, CA — The nation's first commercial direct capture facility opened Thursday in Tracy at a ceremony attended by U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, and other officials.

The plant is operated by Heirloom, a company that uses limestone to remove carbon dioxide directly from the air and permanently store it. The new facility in Tracy has 40-foot-tall stacks of trays holding limestone that naturally absorbs carbon dioxide, according to a report in The New York Times. Workers heat the limestone to 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit in a kiln powered by renewable energy. Workers then remove the carbon dioxide from the limestone and permanently seal it in a concrete storage tank, where it can no longer heat the planet. Left over calcium oxide is turned back into limestone that can be used for the same process.

"Limestone is very cheap, but we also want to limit our environmental impact in every way,” Max Scholten, head of commercialization at Heirloom, said at the facility launch. "So we recycle it as many times as we possibly can. It's really essential to us that we're not just saving on costs, but ensuring that our overall environmental impact is as low as possible."

Scientists say the planet will need to remove billions of carbon dioxide from the air annually to help slow the effects of climate change. The Tracy plant plans to absorb 1,000 metric tons a year, about equal to the exhaust of 200 cars. At this point, the technology is costly: a source told Reuters that each ton costs $600-1000. Though some critics say this technology will distract from the need to cut emissions, others say this is one of the only ways to keep climate change at relatively tolerable levels.

“Direct air capture technology is a game-changing tool that gives us a shot at removing the carbon pollution that has been building in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution,” Granholm said.

Heirloom is hoping to expand quickly and eventually reach millions of tons per year, and many other companies are jumping on board. The Department of Energy awarded grants to $1.2 billion to help several different companies suck air from the skies, according to The New York Times.

— Bay City News contributed to this report.