Team of Battelle, Climeworks, Heirloom, Receive Notification of Selection on Direct Air Capture Hub from U.S. Department of Energy

Battelle and leading clean technology developers Climeworks and Heirloom have received Notification of Selection from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a proposal for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Regional Direct Air Capture (DAC) Hubs program.

Siting Project Cypress in Louisiana, a state with a long history as an energy leader, provides access to local talent and expertise that are essential to scaling carbon removal and storage technologies. Local carbon storage company, Gulf Coast Sequestration, will partner with Project Cypress to sequester captured CO₂. GCS is already in the advanced stages of obtaining Class VI well approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Carbon capture opens a new era of energy and manufacturing dominance for Louisiana. It is the future of job creation and economic development for our state,” said Dr. Bill Cassidy, U.S. Senator from Louisiana. “It’s for this reason that I wrote the original Direct Air Capture Hub program and ensured its inclusion in the infrastructure bill. As these projects move forward today, we are excited that both the companies involved, and the Department of Energy recognize the future of American energy and manufacturing lay in Louisiana.”

In addition to removing CO₂ from the atmosphere, Project Cypress aims to make robust investments in the local community and region creating new job pathways in the design, construction, and operation of the DAC Hub. 

“Louisiana’s climate action plan has positioned us as a leader in the global energy transition, and this notification from DOE is another milestone in our efforts,” said Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards. “Our talented energy workforce and embrace of lower carbon technologies make us the perfect fit for innovative projects like this Direct Air Capture Hub. I would like to thank Battelle, Climeworks, and Heirloom for selecting Southwest Louisiana for Project Cypress. And I would like to thank President Biden, Senator Bill Cassidy, and Representative Troy Carter for their support of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that has made this possible.”

Battelle Energy and Resilience Division Manager Shawn Bennett said, “It is important to bring Direct Air Capture projects to fruition across the country as a method of bridging to a future that greatly reduces the amount of legacy carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This project, and projects of this nature supported by the DOE, is designed to bring many benefits to communities where they are located, and we look forward to working with the communities of Southwest Louisiana to maximize those opportunities for them.’’ 

“The Notification of Selection is a recognition that Project Cypress has what it takes to contribute to the build-up of the American DAC ecosystem,” said Daniel Nathan, Chief Project Development Officer at Climeworks. “It is a testament to Climeworks' proven ability to deliver high-quality, high-integrity carbon removal via DAC+S and we are excited to work alongside all project partners to bring DAC technology to the Gulf Coast. Combining our decade-long experience of developing, deploying, and operating commercial DAC facilities with Battelle’s experience in leading large project execution will lay the foundation for the hub that will bring carbon removal to life in Louisiana—for maximum climate impact and to the benefit of local communities.” 

“The Notification of Selection underscores Heirloom’s potential to safely and permanently remove CO₂ from the air at megaton scale, in collaboration with our Project Cypress partners, the Biden administration, and the State of Louisiana,” said Max Scholten, Heirloom’s Head of Commercialization. “Project Cypress’s success will be measured through the jobs we create and the benefits we shape with communities in our new home of Louisiana. This is a chance to write the playbook for how a new era of industrial policy lifts up the people and places that inequities of the past have overlooked as we make a measurable difference for the climate. We can’t wait to get to work.”

Heirloom also joined three other successful DAC Hub applications that are eligible for up to $3 million from the DOE, including the Ankeron DAC Hub which was convened by the clean energy nonprofit RMI, the carbon mineralization company Carbfix, and the Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL). In Ankernon, Heirloom will join a study on the feasibility of carbon mineralization and carbon management in eastern Washington and neighboring states.  

“Just a few months after Heirloom world-first storage of atmospheric CO2 into concrete, we’re thrilled to see that the Ankeron Hub has been selected by the DOE because it opens up the exciting new frontier of carbon mineralization as a permanent storage method for CO2. We’re looking forward to bringing our nature-inspired Direct Air Capture technology – that harnesses the natural power of limestone to pull CO2 from the atmosphere – to the Ankeron Hub,” said our Head of Commercialization, Max Scholten. 

Our other two successful hub applications were led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to be sited in Illinois and Florida. These partnerships combine the best of commercial know-how, innovative technology, and academic exploration to deploy Heirloom’s DAC solution in two starkly different climatic environments. Our priorities for these hubs reflect our same commitment to building trust with communities while creating jobs and cleaning our atmosphere of planet-warming CO2.