Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal is About to Go Big

By Ramin Skibba.

Following its Singaporean pilot project, carbon sequestration start-up Equatic aims to build a massive plant in Quebec.

Cutting carbon emissions is not enough to keep global warming to less than 1.5 °C—the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Not anymore, at least. Unless the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy generation speeds up considerably, climate scientists say that removing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere will be essential to closing the gap and keeping planetary heating under control. As a result, hundreds of start-ups pledging to remove greenhouse gases from the air and water have popped up within the past few years.

While land-based carbon dioxide removal projects have been undergoing testing and development for decades, ocean-based carbon removal is a more recent arena in the push to combat climate change. And one of the leaders in that field—Equatic—is about to ramp up its efforts in a big way.

What began three years ago as a US Department of Energy–funded research project out of the University of California Los Angeles has already grown into a pair of pilot projects in Los Angeles and Singapore. And now, the company has its sights set on building a massive marine carbon capture facility in Quebec that—once completed—will rival the world’s largest terrestrial carbon removal facilities.

In a statement, Equatic said it is working with Montreal-based carbon removal developer Deep Sky. Equatic says it chose Quebec for its plant because building there would offer access to renewable electricity and because of the province’s decarbonization plans. Yet whether at the still-in-development Quebec plant, which Equatic hopes will get under construction soon and become operational in 2027, or at its existing test facilities, the company’s process for capturing carbon works the same way.