Spiritus Announces the First “Carbon Orchard” for Direct Air Capture, will Sequester 2 Megatons of Carbon Annually in Wyoming

In a significant development for climate action, Spiritus, the leading climate tech company designing solutions for market accessible carbon removal using direct air capture (DAC), has announced today that it will establish its first “Carbon Orchard” direct air capture and sequestration site in Central Wyoming. The facility, known as Orchard One, will be one of the world’s largest direct air capture facilities, capable of capturing and sequestering up to two megatons of carbon from the atmosphere annually. Orchard One will bring hundreds of jobs to Wyoming, and will begin carbon removal in 2026.

Spiritus is pioneering a new offering for direct air capture, the gold standard for high-quality carbon dioxide removal (CDR), that makes direct air capture accessible within all net-zero portfolios by driving a tenfold reduction in cost from current standards. Increasing accessibility means bringing the cost of direct air capture and geologic sequestration under $100 a ton, a tenfold cost reduction, enabling stakeholders to achieve more carbon removal value for their high-quality CDR investments. Stakeholders can now include top-quality direct air capture from Orchard One in their portfolios, overcoming a major concern with alternative lower-quality lower-permanence carbon credits and offsets.

Orchard One will exclusively use geologic sequestration to store captured carbon on-site. Often referred to as the gold standard of carbon storage, geologic sequestration prevents carbon from re-entering the atmosphere by trapping it in naturally occurring rock formations deep underground. Once operational, Orchard One will result in the removal of the airline emissions from approximately three million Americans, or 340,000 pickup trucks annually, demonstrating that direct air capture is a scalable solution to net-zero.

Additional benefits of Orchard One include verifiable and transparent traceability of stored carbon, support of the local community through engagement, job creation, and contributing a portion of profits to the areas of largest community need. Spiritus is committed to bringing good-paying jobs to Wyoming for existing residents, with plans to partner with local universities and other organizations to ensure adequate training is made available in the region.

Orchard One has already gained commercial interest with the first carbon removal services allocated to Frontier (founded by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta and McKinsey), Watershed, and Terraset who are among Orchard One’s carbon pre-purchase customers. These purchases followed Spiritus’ de-stealth in September 2023, where it revealed funding led by Khosla Ventures. Additional carbon removal from Orchard One is available directly from Spiritus, as well as through our founding partners, Watershed, Cloverly, and Terraset.

Execution of Orchard One will be overseen by Mindy Ren, Spiritus’ recently hired Head of Carbon Removal Infrastructure, whose previous work in infrastructure management includes leadership roles at ExxonMobil, Tesla, and Meta.

“Wyoming is a leader in the responsible certification of geological storage, making it an ideal location for us to establish our first Carbon Orchard,” said Ren. “Today’s announcement marks an important milestone in cleaning the air for future generations, and paves the way for further deployments of this scale.”

“Establishing Orchard One in the state of Wyoming marks a major advancement in our global journey towards net-zero,” said Charles Cadieu, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Spiritus. “Our approach, a first in the industry, brings high-efficiency carbon removal within the economic reach of broader markets. Leveraging our proprietary sorbent technology and achieving substantial reductions in energy consumption, we’re moving to reduce the cost of direct air capture to under $100 per ton. This tenfold reduction in cost, compared to previous methods, marks an inflection point in the field. We’re excited to break ground in Wyoming to set a new precedent, not only for Spiritus but for the broader field of carbon removal, driving positive change in environmental stewardship.”

To learn more about how Spiritus is pioneering a feasible, scalable, and cost-effective approach to carbon removal, visit spiritus.com.

About Spiritus

Spiritus is a climate tech company at the forefront of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology. With a dedication to innovation and sustainable stewardship of our environment, Spiritus has crafted a unique solution that achieves rapid sorption and desorption rates at a fraction of the sorbent cost versus state-of-the-art sorbents under passive DAC conditions. The company’s approach combines the Spiritus Sorbent and the Spiritus Carbon Orchard, offering a scalable and modular system for low-cost DAC and sequestration (DAC+S). Spiritus is committed to making carbon removal an accessible and practical tool in the global fight against climate change. For more information, visit Spiritus.com.

Source

Spiritus, press release, 2024-03-19.

Supplier

Cloverly
Frontier
Spiritus
Terraset
Watershed Marketplace

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