Burying the CO2 Problem, Startups and Companies Partner on Solutions

American Airlines reached a deal with Graphyte to capture and store 10,000 tons of CO2 by 2025. (Image Credit: American Airlines)

American Airlines recently landed an agreement with Graphyte, a Bill Gates-backed climate startup, to capture and bury 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2025. Graphyte plans to launch its first carbon capture and storage technology at its facility in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. This deal works with American Airlines' target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. According to the airline, carbon capture and storage is a viable solution for reducing emissions, and it's looking into switching the fleet with fuel-efficient planes running on hydrogen.

In exchange, American Airlines gets carbon credits for every ton removed. These credits echo carbon offsets related to forest or tree planting strategies, which faced backlash for not slashing greenhouse emissions. New-found carbon removal techniques must prove that they can actually trap CO2 that would've stayed in the air.

Graphyte develops tech that removes CO2 from the atmosphere or industrial settings and places it underground. Other startups have joined the game, but their equipment is costly, so it can't be scaled up to slash carbon emissions sufficiently.

"This is a landmark agreement for both Graphyte and American Airlines," Graphyte CEO Barclay Rogers said in a press release. "It demonstrates the growing demand for affordable and scalable high-quality carbon removal credits and the ability of carbon casting technology to make a significant impact in the fight against climate change in the very near term."

Graphyte came up with a new, affordable technique called carbon casting. This involves drying, tightly packing, and burying plant matter. The startup claims this stops the plant matter decomposition process that would eventually emit CO2 consumed by the plants during photosynthesis.  Graphyte gathers biomass from agriculture and lumber production before drying plant material to eliminate moisture and microbes it may contain. Then, the company packs the biomass in bricks, which get wrapped in "an environmentally safe, impermeable barrier to ensure that decomposition does not restart." According to Graphyte, storing these bricks beneath the earth keeps carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere for a thousand years. 

Graphyte says it can capture carbon for just $100/ton, a financially viable removal technique at scale. Today's biggest CO2 removal plant captures carbon for $600/ton. Plus, the startup claims it doesn't need as much energy as other competitors that use machinery to remove carbon from the air or oceans.

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