Carbon removal company Captura has teamed up with AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles to advance ocean-climate solutions.
AltaSea is a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating scientific collaboration, facilitating job creation, and inspiring the next generation for a more sustainable ocean.
Under this partnership, Captura’s latest ocean carbon removal system, which can capture 100 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the ocean per year, will be installed at AltaSea’s 35-acre campus at the Port of Los Angeles. The port is one of the world’s biggest points for cargo transportation and is working on numerous carbon reduction projects
The AltaSea campus has 4,100 linear feet of waterfront at the campus and includes research space open to numerous universities.
According to the company, the new system is 100 times larger than its initial pilot, which has been in operation in Newport Beach, California, since August 2022. The new system is funded by Southern California Gas Company as part of its ongoing partnership with Captura to support the demonstration and scale-up of the technology.
The system has already been tested end-to-end in the company’s lab in Pasadena and will be moved to AltaSea in the coming months for ocean field trials. Captura’s team will conduct technology development and ocean modeling work at AltaSea to validate and improve the efficiency of the pilot DOC system and guide feasibility studies for commercial facilities.
The company says its direct ocean capture (DOC) technology leverages the ocean’s natural capacity as a carbon sink to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The process utilizes proprietary electrodialysis technology powered by renewable energy to capture CO2 directly from seawater, delivering it as a measurable stream that can be utilized or permanently sequestered. The CO2-depleted seawater is then returned to the ocean, where it can absorb the same quantity of CO2 from the air that was removed.
In addition to being highly scalable and cost-effective, the company says its process creates no by-products and does not add anything to the ocean.
“Captura’s technology is progressing rapidly through our piloting program towards large-scale commercial deployment,” said Steve Oldham, CEO of Captura. “Now, our work with AltaSea means we can further accelerate our technology and monitor how our system interacts with the ocean, and we couldn’t think of a better partner to help us take our progress to the next level. Alongside the support from SoCalGas, this really is a great example of California companies working together to take a leading role in the fight against climate change.”
