Investing in Alithic was a no-brainer. We’re thrilled to join in the company’s seed round alongside Counteract and WARF Ventures.
We had been searching for a stand-out Direct Air Capture (DAC) company for a while, but nothing quite fit the bill until we found Alithic with its startling energetics — less than 200 kWh of energy per ton of CO2 captured!
But don’t just take our word for it. Frontier recently selected Alithic as part of their latest carbon removal pre-purchase.
The company’s innovative DAC technology cost-efficiently confronts climate change on two vital fronts: Capturing CO₂ from the air and reducing hard-to-abate cement emissions. Its single-step process captures and converts CO₂ into a cement replacement product. The technology was developed by a top-tier research team (Professor Rob Anex and Professor Bu Wang) at the University of Wisconsin.
The Need for Effective DAC Solutions
DAC is essential in the fight against climate change. Most scenarios for global emissions include substantial volumes of carbon removal. The Energy Transitions Commission estimates we will overshoot our carbon budget by 70-225 GT CO₂ by 2050. Similarly, McKinsey anticipates a need for 1.6-3 GT/year of carbon dioxide removal by 2030 and 5-10 GT/year by 2050. We believe that there is no escaping the need for GT of carbon removals if we want to stabilize our climate.
Nature-based carbon removal solutions are often ineffective due to their higher risks of being reversed (e.g., forest fires, land-use changes). In contrast, DAC-captured CO₂ can be stored in rocks or value-added materials like cement for 1000+ years, ensuring long-term sequestration.
Alithic’s Cost Efficiency Stands Out vs. DAC Peers
DAC faces skepticism due to its high costs, energy intensity, and complex logistics. Alithic sidesteps these challenges with the best performance metrics for DAC that we have seen to date.
- Costs: With a $150/ton cost target, Alithic is positioned at the very low end of the DAC forecast range, far below current DAC credit prices (>$750/ton).
- Energy Efficiency: Its DAC + mineralization process is 5-15x more energy efficient than traditional DAC. The company can capture and sequester CO₂ permanently for less than 200 kWh of electricity. The mineralisation reaction regenerates the solvent used in the capture process, eliminating the need for any external regeneration energy.
- Logistics: Its built-in mineralisation avoids the need for back-end processing or transporting the CO2 to a permanent store.
Valuable Co-Product Transforming the Cement Industry The cement industry accounts for 8% of global emissions. Alithic’s carbonated by-product, also known as supplementary cementitious material, can replace 5-20% of a bag of cement. This significantly reduces embodied CO2 and lowers the overall cost per ton of CO2 removed. Its low permeability also offers durability benefits to the cement sector.
