“CarbonCapture Inc. Pauses Development Of Project Bison In Wyoming”, by Vasil Velev
The company announced it is “pausing” the development of Project Bison and is looking to relocate to another state due to high competition for renewable energy from rapidly growing data centers.
CarbonCapture Inc. Pauses Development Of Project Bison In Wyoming
September 2, 2024
4 minute read
Source: CarbonCapture Inc
CarbonCapture Inc has decided not to construct its first direct air capture project in Wyoming. The company announced it is “pausing” the development of Project Bison and is looking to relocate to another state due to high competition for renewable energy from rapidly growing data centers.
The company sees the use of clean energy as a fixed part of its model, ensuring optimal impact in terms of carbon emissions from the entirety of its operations.
Announced in 2023, the project was scheduled to be operational before 2024 and aimed to reach 5 million metric tons of carbon removal annually by 2030.
The move follows a solid amount of progress in developing the project with a number of partners and stakeholders. Frontier Carbon Solutionshad secured three Class VI permits from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and positive relationships with the University of Wyoiming, the office of Governor Gordon and local communities were also established, laying the foundations for the development of the Wyoming Regional DAC Hub.
Project Bison would have been a keystone of the DAC Hub, with the company and its partners selected for $12.5 million in funds from the DOE. CarbonCapture Inc. stated they are in contact with the DOE regarding the transfer of the funding to a future location.
Move away from Wyoming —just a bump in the road for CarbonCapture Inc?
This setback goes against the upward trajectory CarbonCapture Inc has been on in the last several years.
In March 2024 the company announced it had raised an $80 million Series A round and already has pre-purchase agreements for its carbon removal credits with a number of clients like Microsoft. This was complemented by progress in the DOE’s Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchase Pilot Prize.
Relevant: CarbonCapture Inc. Secures Lease For World’s First DAC Manufacturing Facility
In June the company also announced it had signed a lease agreement for its very first manufacturing project. Planning to produce 4,000 units every year that would be capable of removing 2 million tons of CO2, the 83,000 square foot facility will be situated in Mesa, Arizona.
The Leo Series — the first commercial-scale DAC system designed for mass manufacturing in the United States — was also recently unveiled with each module containing 12 DAC reactors and capable of removing 500 tons of CO₂ per year.
CarbonCapture Inc has indicated that the new location of its DAC site will be revealed in the next few months, indicating that talks are already under way with potential new sites. The company website also lists a project named “Sonora” but there are no further details about its parameters or location.
Carbon negative Wyoming
The relocation of CarbonCapture Inc will be a blow to Wyoming and its ambitions to become carbon negative. Even though the state has a longstanding relationship with coal, Republican Governor Mark Gordon has been vocal about making Wyoming “carbon negative” and has supported initiatives aimed at promoting carbon removal and carbon capture.
This environment has spurred other DAC and carbon management compaines to also invest in projects located in the state. Spiritus (who share Saudi Aramco as investors with CarbonCapture Inc) applied for a Class VI permit in August and Tallgrass Energy secured a permit that authorized the conversion of an existing 400-mile natural gas pipeline into a dedicated carbon dioxide transportation network.
The push for the deployment of both carbon-focused technologies and of renewables also comes as part of a an initiative by the Western Governor’s Association — currently chaired by Governor Gordon —which has 19 member states and is pursuing decarbonization through a variety of initiatives.
In June the organization unveiled the “Decarbonizing the West Initiative Appendix” where carbon capture and removal are described as key parts of achieving net zero targets.
It remains to be seen how the rapidly increasing demand for renewable energy demand in both Wyoming and across the Western U.S. will impact these and other projects but it appears the landscape has been permanently altered.
AI, data centers and energy consumption
According to study by Goldman Sachs Research, AI will drive a 160% surge in energy demand from data centers by 2030.
With a single ChatGPT query needing 2.9 watt-hours of electricity, compared to 0.3 watt-hours per single Google search (according to the International Energy Agency) the researchers think power consumption by data centers will be 200 terrawat-hours every year from 2023 to 2030.
The surge in AI adoption has changed the bottomline in terms of emissions for one of the most active investors in the carbon removal industry – Microsoft. The tech giant has seen a 30% surge in its emissions while attempting to meet demand for AI services.
This led Microsoft to sign a deal with Brookfield Asset Management for developing 10.5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity to power its data centers.
