Rendering of Equatic's carbon removal and green hydrogen plant to be built in Quebec.
Equatic / Grace CarbonEquatic, a cleantech startup spun out of UCLA last year that says it can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere affordably while simultaneously making green hydrogen, is moving to commercialize the system with a large-scale $100 million plant in Quebec.
For the plant, the Los Angeles-based company, cofounded by Gaurav Sant, director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management and a professor of environmental engineering, is partnering with Deep Sky, a Canadian company that’s developing multiple carbon removal projects. Located on the St. Lawrence Seaway, it’s to open as early as 2026 and be scaled to remove more than 100,000 metric tons of CO2 annually while also generating 3,600 metric tons of hydrogen the company can sell.
“The plant will allow us to get to below $100 per ton (of CO2 removal) by 2030,” Equatic COO Edward Sanders told Forbes, factoring in projected revenue from hydrogen sales. Electricity will come from a “non-fossil source” though he declined to confirm it would be hydropower. “Engineering work starts now, with a goal of operating in 2026 – likely the end of 2026.”
Gaurav Sant, a UCLA engineering professor and director of the Institute for Carbon Management, explains how Equatic's technology pulls CO2 out of seawater and makes green hydrogen.
AFP via Getty ImagesIndustrial-scale carbon removal is seen as a critical new industry, along with the growth of renewable energy, to help combat the worst effects of climate change that are already triggering record heat and more intense storms. From the outset, Equatic’s focus has been to develop an affordable way to pull CO2 from the ocean, which acts as a planet-wide sponge for the greenhouse gas but is soon to be oversaturated. While companies such as Climeworks act as large-scale vacuums that suck in CO2 from the ambient air and sequester it underground in solid form, Equatic’s ocean-based approach uses an electrochemical process to render it harmless, while creating hydrogen and materials like calcium carbonate, or chalk.
Last month, Equatic began construction of a demonstration plant in Singapore that will use the same technology that’s going into the larger Quebec facility. It’s partnered with a local utility on that project and co-located with an existing desalination plant. While Equatic plans to announce a new funding round beyond the $30 million it raised in 2023, it’s already selling credits for about $500 per ton, Sanders said. Last year, it announced a deal to sell future carbon removal credits to Boeing that may be worth at least $50 million.
Climeworks, which already operates commercial carbon capture facilities in Iceland, this month said its next-generation system would be able to cut CO2 removal costs to as little as $400 a ton by 2030, less than half its current cost. Even if Equatic doesn’t sell the hydrogen it generates, Sanders estimates its CO2 removal cost would be about $200 a ton.
That’s achieved by using an energy-efficient electrolyzer to zap CO2 from seawater, which is also less energy-intensive than sucking it out of the air. Factor in the ability to offset those costs by selling carbon-free hydrogen, and it becomes an even more affordable approach, he said.
“As climate urgency grows, we need to accelerate the development of commercial facilities,” said Damien Steel, CEO of Montreal-based Deep Sky, which has raised $75 million with backing from venture funds and Quebec to help get carbon removal projects built. “We’re thrilled to begin the engineering phase of a commercial-scale plant with Equatic, moving closer to removing billions of tons of CO2 using the oceans to reverse global warming.”
More Equatic facilities are coming, including one in the U.S., Sanders said, without elaborating. The company was recently named a semifinalist for a carbon removal tech competition run by the Energy Department. To receive the full benefit of that award, “we have to put a plant into the U.S. It’s absolutely in the cards.”
