‘Trillions of future dollars’ – Israeli tech helping capture carbon in skies, seas

Israeli innovators are capturing and storing carbon from seawater and skies, a service which one entrepreneur predicts will be worth “trillions” in the coming years.

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

Israeli entrepreneurs are launching a number of ambitious ventures aimed at reducing and capturing carbon dioxide in seawater and the sky.

While many green tech companies aim to reduce carbon emissions – for example, by creating and presenting electric vehicles as an alternative to carbon-generating gas-powered cars – Israeli start-ups are focused on capturing carbon dioxide that’s already present in the air and water.

RepAir, based in the northern Israeli town Yokneam, is an Israeli carbon capture start-up that has raised millions of dollars in funding. RepAir’s solution streams air from the atmosphere through an electrochemical device.

Leveraging electrically charged ions, the device separates carbon dioxide from the rest of the air.

“We have already demonstrated in the lab that our technology consumes between one-quarter to one-third less energy than our competitors, and in another year we’ll install a prototype on our roof and test it in real environmental conditions,” Shiner told Calcalist.

“Our plan is to establish a facility in Iceland in mid-2025 that will capture 200 tonnes of carbon per year and continue to grow from there.

“We’re developing a deep-tech solution, so the process takes more time, but we’re not tree-hugging idealists – we believe that the market for carbon capture, storage, and trading in credits will generate trillions of dollars in the future.”

Northern Israel-based start-up Carbon Blue, which was founded by Iddo Tsur and Dan Deviri, is currently in the advanced testing phase for a solution that can extract carbon from seawater.

“Most of the solutions in the world focus on how to capture carbon from the air, but 95%-98% of carbon is found in the sea, and the concentration of carbon in the sea is 100 times higher than in the air,” Tsur and Deviri told Calcalist.

“The oceans naturally absorb a quarter of human carbon emissions and our technology makes room to absorb even more. Our solution extracts carbon from seawater and turns it into pure gas by using natural minerals found in the sea and using clean energy. It’s a process similar to how gasoline is distilled from oil.”

The pair told Calcalist that they plan to scale up their operation within a year, and aim to set up a factory or offshore rig to support the seawater carbon capture.

Smaller amounts of the carbon will be sold to soft drink companies or farmers, Tsur and Deviri explained, but larger amounts can eventually be buried underground, in abandoned oil drilling wells or similar sites.