Charm Industrial
Using agricultural waste to store atmospheric CO2 underground for thousands of years.
CO2 is naturally taken out of the atmosphere by plants, which absorb and use it to create energy during photosynthesis. This is why you may have heard of trees referred to as ‘nature's lungs’. However, the carbon is released when plants die and rot, undoing the work that nature has done to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Charm industrial seek to capitalize on the natural ability of plants to absorb CO2 and prevent the release of CO2 once plants die. This ‘working with nature’ initiative has successfully sequestered thousands of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, storing it permanently underground.
Charm industrial implement waste management into its strategy by relying on agricultural waste from corn production - stems and corn cobs - for their process.
How the process works:
Farmers rake up dead plants while Charm Industrial visits the farm and sets up their machinery.
This biomass (dead plant matter) is ground up into smaller pieces which are then heated rapidly to 500 degrees.
The biomass is vaporized, leaving behind solid char particles.
The vapor (rich in CO2) is captured and condensed into bio-oil: a dense fluid rich in carbon.
The bio-oil is pumped into old oil and gas reserves, storing the carbon underground indefinitely.
The resulting bio-char particles can be given to farmers and used as fertilizer, improving the health of the soil. The heat required for this process is driven by the biomass itself, meaning it isn’t using any energy from the grid, and is a self-sustaining process.
Scalability and potential:
100 million acres of corn are grown per Year in the US. These plants capture 600M tonnes of CO2 annually. The size and potential to scale this solution is monumental and could play a huge role in CO2 storage. Charm Industrial roughly estimate that there is 1.5 billion tons of waste biomass available per year for their process. So far they have sequestored 6,000 tonnes of CO2.
To look out for:
Once at scale they are going to use the bio-oil in place of coal/natural gas to make carbon negative iron. Ironmaking is currently 7% of global emissions, twice that of aviation. Charm Industrial will be able to have positive environmental impacts in sectors outside of carbon dioxide removal.
Watch a BBC documentary about Charm Industrial:
Sources:
Environmental Benefits
The self-sustaining process requires 0 energy from the grid
The company has removed over 5500 tonnes of CO2 so far.
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