Carbon removal pioneer Climeworks has set up shop in Calgary, where it will build the groundwork for an Alberta facility that can vacuum carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air at industrial scale.

In February, the Swiss company announced its Canadian headquarters in the Energy Transition Centre (ETC), a downtown hub for cleantech and other energy- and climate-related tech organizations. Its team will prepare a series of projects from testing its direct air capture (DAC) technology to developing a commercial-level site.

Alberta has “a combination of all the things that we require and that we think really would set us up to have a very successful project,” Colum Furey, Climeworks’ Canada director, said in an interview with Sustainable Biz Canada.

Founded in 2009, Climeworks is the project developer of the world’s first commercial DAC installation in Switzerland, named Hinwil. Its technology moves air to a material called a solid sorbent, which absorbs the CO2. Once at its limit, the sorbent is heated to release and produce a pure stream of CO2 that can be securely stored away or used for industrial purposes.

Climeworks has two more projects in Iceland: Orca, which can remove up to 4,000 tons of CO2 per year; and Mammoth, designed to draw down up to 36,000 tons per year.

Why Climeworks chose Alberta

Furey, a mechanical engineer by education, worked for Shell Canada in project development and production operation support for heavy oil and natural gas before moving to the company’s carbon capture, utilization and storage side. He joined Climeworks in 2023 to continue his interest in the carbon capture and removal sector as part of a rapidly growing company.

Climeworks chose Alberta for its Canadian head office because of the province’s stable policy, permitting framework, energy infrastructure and workforce, Furey said. He also noted the presence of carbon capture and storage options, plus the province having “a great platform for low-carbon energy.”

The ETC is a “great space” because it enables easy collaboration with regulators, site developers, engineers and industry peers who are also housed in the ETC, Furey said.

“Being closer and having this access to the folks we need to speak to really does help.”

Climeworks’ Alberta projects

Climeworks is joining other carbon removal players such as Deep Sky and True North Carbon that have chosen Alberta and the Canadian Prairies for their projects.

First, Climeworks looks to move its mobile test unit from Saudi Arabia to Alberta, subjecting its DAC technology “to the other end of available climate conditions,” as Furey described. The aims are to prove the performance of its sorbent in the province’s climate and get the data to inform possible project locations. The unit is expected to arrive in the Calgary region before the fall.

Second, Climeworks expects to deploy demonstration equipment to test some components of a commercial facility, which could start as soon as mid-2027.

Third, the company aims to reach the final investment decision for the commercial-scale project by the end of the decade and have the site operating in the early 2030s. Its full capacity is expected to be hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2 per year, Furey said.

Climework is in the final stages of site selection for its first Canadian commercial project, which it wants to co-locate with a CO2 storage partner. The company is exploring ways to run the facility with low-carbon options such as renewables, waste heat from nearby sites, and a power plant equipped with carbon capture equipment.

Climeworks focused on cutting costs and energy use

Carbon removal companies are pitching their technologies as a way to address climate change by removing CO2 from the environment. In most cases, companies generate a credit per tonne of CO2 removed which can be purchased on markets.

Climeworks looks to sell the credits from its planned Alberta facility on voluntary compliance markets in business-to-business deals with companies wanting to offset their CO2 emissions, Furey said.

Carbon removal has been identified as one tool among many to meet critical climate targets by organizations like the United Nations.

But technologies like DAC have faced criticism for the high energy needs to run the facilities and the enormous costs of building enough sites to make a dent into the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted per year. Research has questioned whether DAC can ever scale effectively due to the physical limits.

Climeworks is focused on significantly reducing the energy consumption of its technology and bringing costs down to address such concerns, Furey said. It has effectively doubled the throughput and halved energy needs and costs with its third-generation technology, he noted, which will be used in its Alberta commercial facility.

“We’re pretty confident at the moment that with the incentives and programs that exist in Canada, the costs that we see to construct in Canada, and the costs for storage options, that this plant makes sense,” Furey said.