The Start-up Filtering CO2 from the Sea
Keep it Simple
eyeson..project
Amsterdam, November 20, 2024 – A few years ago, eyesonsuriname, part of the eyeson..project, wrote about SeaO2.
With a clear and straightforward approach, the Dutch start-up plans to remove tons of CO2 from the sea. Thanks to a recent investment of over 2 million euros, the company is set to scale up significantly.
Simplicity
The concept SeaO2 presents is really quite simple. The seas and oceans act like a CO2 sponge. The sea and the air work as interconnected vessels. By removing CO2 from the seawater, the sea pulls in an equal amount of CO2 from the air.
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According to one of SeaO2’s co-founders, Ruben Brands, extracting CO2 from water is easier than from air. “The concentration of CO2 in water is 150 times higher than in air. So, it’s easier to remove a ton of CO2 from the sea than from the air.”
Box
Filtering CO2 from the sea is cheaper, simpler, and yields better results. That’s why SeaO2 prefers Direct Ocean Capture (DOC) over Direct Air Capture (DAC). The technology uses a transparent box, which the start-up calls a “stack,” to extract CO2 from the sea.
In this earlier interview and video, the technology is explained in more detail.
Investment
In a recent funding round, the company raised over 2 million euros from investors, including DOEN Participaties, Future Tech Ventures, and CarbonFix.
Brands has plans for the funds. “About 60% of the budget will go towards scaling up the technology. Around 30% will go towards expanding our team, and the remaining 10% will be used for a monitoring and verification system that makes CO2 removal measurable. It’s important to get that right. We store CO2 from seawater permanently. To make our case, it’s essential to know exactly how much.”
Scaling Up
The majority of the raised funds are allocated for scaling up.
“Scaling up is crucial. We don’t have time to waste. The UN’s IPCC climate panel has calculated that we need to remove about 10 gigatons of CO2 from the system to stay within 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming. Our innovation contributes to that goal, and we want to do it as efficiently as possible.”
Efficiency plays a key role. DOC technology requires a lot of energy. SeaO2 only uses green electricity and seawater, but this electricity can’t be used to power businesses or charge cars. “On a large scale, the technology becomes more energy-efficient. We’ll need less green energy, which also reduces the cost. Plus, the more CO2 we remove from the sea, the more we contribute to fighting climate change. By 2030, we want to remove 1 million tons of CO2 from the sea every year. By 2045, that number should reach 1 billion tons. A larger scale means a bigger impact.”
Marine Life
Does filtering seawater have an impact on marine life? To accurately assess this, SeaO2 recently hired an oceanographer.
“It’s good to have an expert on board with connections in the scientific community. Ultimately, our technology only removes CO2 from the water. We don’t alter the composition of the seawater in any other way. It’s known that CO2 acidifies seawater, which is bad for the ecosystem. By removing CO2, we are countering acidification. So, we expect a positive rather than a negative effect on the ecosystem.”
At the same time, this has never been done on such a large scale, so it’s important to monitor it closely. For this, SeaO2 works with other companies involved in DOC. By sharing knowledge and setting protocols, the hope is to carry out this process safely.”
American start-ups like Equatic and Captura are among the companies Brands is referring to. They are also working on technology to filter CO2 from the oceans. “The carbon removal market is evolving rapidly. When we started in 2021, only three companies were working on DOC. Now, I know about fifteen.”
Part of the Solution
This shows the potential of the technology, he says. “More and more people, even skeptics, are becoming convinced that this can be part of the solution.
The technology is here to stay. We must do this if we want to limit global warming. It may sound futuristic to extract CO2 from the oceans over the past 80 years, but it really must happen. Otherwise, we’ll see more terrible events, like heavy rainfall in Valencia, floods closer to home, or the lack of snow in the Alps.
All these phenomena make climate change increasingly visible. I think that visibility, as painful as it is, is a good thing. We need to see the current state of the planet. Only then will it be clear that we need to do more to save it.”