first U.S commercial direct air capture facility opened in California

Last November, the first commercial carbon capture plant in the U.S was made by Heirloom, in California.

Scientists say the world will need to remove billions of tons of carbon-dioxide from the air annually because of climate change.

The climate tech company Heirloom has the key to the goal. They have created an air-capturing machine that removes carbon using crushed limestone and stores the carbon underground.

Rocks are one of Earth's biggest carbon sinks. When carbon dioxide from the atmosphere mixes with minerals, it permanently turns to rock. This process is called carbon mineralization.

At a huge, open-air warehouse at Heirloom, workers take crushed limestone, and heat it in a kiln, separating it into carbon dioxide and calcium oxide powder. Then, the workers extract the carbon dioxide and restore it underground. Next, they mix water with the calcium oxide powder, turning it into calcium hydroxide. After that, the workers spread it onto lots of large trays and leaves it for about three days. Then, it absorbs the carbon dioxide, which makes it turn into limestone. Lastly, they send all of the new limestone back to the kiln and the process starts again.

With this quick process going, the Heirloom scientists have estimated that by 2035, 1 billion tons of carbon-dioxide will be removed from the atmosphere.

This is such exciting news, but it doesn’t mean solving all our climate problems. We should emulate Heirloom’s efforts and think about what we can do to fight climate change.