By Michelle Ma
A type of rock found under every continent holds the potential key to permanently trapping planet-warming carbon dioxide under the Earth’s surface.
44.01, a startup backed by Sam Altman’s Apollo Projects, is developing technology that injects CO2 a kilometer underground, where chemical reactions turn it into stone. That type of technology will likely be crucial to limiting the worst effects of global warming.
In addition to being funded by Altman’s group, the Oman-based startup has raised a $37 million Series A round led by Equinor Ventures with Shorooq Partners in the United Arab Emirates to expand internationally. Other investors in the round include Amazon.com Inc.’s Climate Pledge Fund and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
44.01’s storage process works by injecting a mixture of CO2 and water down a borehole and into cracks in peridotite, a naturally fractured rock. The rock sequesters CO2 through a process known as carbon mineralization, in which certain minerals react with the CO2 to create a solid carbonate.
Peridotite is normally found deep in the Earth’s interior, but in Oman, deposits are found near the surface. Those deposits have allowed scientists to observe peridotite carbon-sequestering abilities, providing a point of comparison for 44.01’s method. The startup’s technique helps speed the sequestration process by pumping carbonated water into the cracks of peridotite deep underground.
“Rather than taking decades as it would in nature, it’s taking us single-digit months in the subsurface,” said founder and Chief Executive Officer Talal Hasan.
Currently, two main methods exist to sequester CO2 permanently underground. Along with 44.01, Icelandic startup Carbfix is pursuing carbon mineralization. (In Carbfix’s case, the startup relies on basalt formations rather than peridotite.) The other technique is storing fluid CO2 — a phase known as “supercritical” — in porous rocks like saline aquifers or old oil and gas reservoirs. The latter is currently the dominant and more mature way to store the greenhouse gas, having been used by the oil and carbon capture industries for decades. However, it requires monitoring due to pressure build-up that can cause CO2 to leak back into the atmosphere.
Carbon mineralization costs up to three times more than supercritical storage. But it also has a major advantage: it “eliminates virtually all risk of CO2 leakage,” according to a 2022 BloombergNEF white paper on scaling carbon removal. Carbon mineralization has the potential to sequester many billions of tons of CO2, according to the paper. That storage space could be vital as reaching net-zero emissions will almost certainly require removing and storing billions of tons of CO2 annually by midcentury.
With this financing round, 44.01 — which derives its name from CO2’s molecular mass — is looking to commercialize its technology in Oman and the United Arab Emirates, where it has already completed pilot and demonstration projects, Hasan said. Tests have shown that it can currently store about 50 to 60 tons of CO2 per day, and 44.01 aims to sequester 100 tons of CO2 daily per injection borehole at commercial scale.
First Published: Jul 15 2024 | 11:24 PM IST
