"You can capture the carbon, but then what do you do with it?" said Andrew Chung, founder and managing partner of 1955 Capital, a VC firm that invests in sustainable technologies. And storing CO2 underground in and of itself isn't a business it relies on subsidies or a carbon market with sufficiently high prices to function. Carbon-capture projects often involve immense capital investment, political uncertainty and vastly longer time horizons than typical startup efforts. Investors have plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Much of that investment was driven by non-traditional investors-oil companies, governments and others-who participated in nearly two-thirds of all deals.
VC-backed carbon capture startups took in $336.5 million last year to set a modest record, according to PitchBook data. And BP, Shell and the Norwegian government have all launched significant projects to catch and bury carbon.īut the industry has received relatively little funding from venture capital in recent years, despite startup investors' frothy backing of electric vehicles and related technology.
Bill Gates has backed Carbon Engineering, a prominent startup that scrubs CO2 directly from the atmosphere. (Courtesy of Liquid Wind)Ī growing number of startups have ambitions to turn carbon dioxide emissions into cold hard cash-with the hope of charting a course to clean up emissions-heavy industries without relying on perpetual government subsidies.Ĭapturing carbon-whether it be from the air, ocean or factory smokestacks-has amassed prominent fans who see it as a moonshot that could one day help humanity reverse course on CO2 emissions.Įlon Musk recently volunteered $100 million of his own money as part of an XPrize competition to be doled out to carbon capture startups.
Swedish startup Liquid Wind is using captured CO2 emissions to create methanol for the shipping industry.
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