By Nina Chestney
LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) - Canada-based Carbon Engineering has exceeded its financing target which will enable it to deploy its first commercial operation to remove carbon dioxide directly from the air, it said on Thursday.
Founded in 2009, Carbon Engineering developed technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the atmosphere and converts it into low-carbon fuels for transport and for use in enhanced oil recovery.
The firm told Reuters in January that it expected to reach a $60 million financing target by the end of the first quarter. said on Thursday it has completed an equity financing round of $68 million, the largest private equity investment made into a direct air capture company to date.
Investors in the technology now include U.S. billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, Canadian billionaire Murray Edwards, coking coal producer BHP BHPB.L BHP.AX , Chevron (NYSE:CVX) Technology Ventures CVX.N , Oxy Low Carbon Ventures OXY.N as well as others, the firm said.
The company has been removing CO2 from the atmosphere since 2015 at a pilot plant in British Columbia and converting it into fuel which can power cars, trucks and aeroplanes since 2017.
The $68 million investment will allow Carbon Engineering to expand its pilot plant in British Colombia and deploy its first commercial facilities which will be able to capture up to one million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air each year.
Carbon Engineering says its technology can capture and purify CO2 for under $100 a tonne.
"Our technology has been proven based on extensive testing in our pilot facility, and we're ready to scale up using existing commercial equipment to deploy reliable and cost-effective facilities," said the company's chief executive Steve Oldham.
Extracting vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could help to limit global warming, blamed for causing more heatwaves, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels.
The costs of such technologies are high, however, and a huge number of plants would be needed to make a dent in manmade CO2 emissions.