COOL(ING) EXPERIMENT
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Can tiny fungi slash the cost of capturing carbon and fight climate change?
High-profile investors including Chris Sacca and Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes have backed an Australian project that seeks to slash the costs of sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by using microscopic fungi.
The two billionaires took part in a $7 million seed round led by Horizons Ventures, a technology-focused private investment group backed by Li Ka-shing, the company, Soil Carbon Co., said in a statement. The Australian government is also backing the project with A$1.7 million via the Clean Energy Finance Corp.
As the world seeks ways to combat emissions of the climate-changing gas, Soil Carbon is looking to scale up its technology to convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to enrich agricultural land. It hopes to do so at a far lower cost than competing technologies and attract corporations looking to buy carbon credits, providing an additional incentive to farmers.
Soil Carbon “is urging companies and CEOs to help scale the project and drive the growth of this new market by committing to buy carbon credits,” it said in the statement.
The company is aiming for a per-ton cost of CO2 capture below $20, compared with about $100 it said the majority of other technologies are predicted to reach.
Soil Carbon says its technology has the double benefit of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide while at the same time enriching agricultural soil quality devastated by modern intensive farming techniques.
Trials for the product will continue for the next 18 to 24 months, with a commercial launch expected after that, Guy Hudson, the company’s cofounder, said in a telephone interview.
The project will use fungi and bacteria to suck CO2 from the air to bolster soil fertility. The process involves minimal extra work for the farmer, being easily applied as a seed treatment or a granule in the field that will grow out to become an extension of the root system of the crop and function alongside it.