Chloe Aiello, Inc.
Graphyte, a carbon removal startup backed by Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures, is set to kick off operations at its Arkansas-based plant on Friday, February 9.
The company's "carbon casting" technology involves drying and compressing biomass from timber and agricultural by-products into blocks roughly the size of shoeboxes. The blocks are then covered in an impermeable barrier, buried underground, and monitored to prevent decomposition. This eliminates potential emissions created when the biomass is burned or left to decompose. Friday's milestone for the one-year-old company launches its goal of removing 15,000 metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere by the end of 2024, plus an additional 50,000 in 2025, ClimateWire reported.
"Graphyte's first facility producing carbon casting blocks this week will become the largest carbon removal company in the world in the next several months and alone will remove 50,000 tons next year," Graphyte CEO Barclay Rogers wrote in an email. "This is not a hypothetical, this is happening as we speak."
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