All of us at Biorecro are very excited to have been short-listed for the Virgin Earth Challenge this month! Swedish Biorecro is among around a dozen remaining groups that emerged from an extensive review process of over 2,600 submissions.
Biorecro competes with a technology called BECCS (Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage). The technique builds on the natural absorption of carbon dioxide that happens when trees and plants grow. When these trees and plants are combusted, carbon dioxide is captured, compressed and then pumped into the underground. In this way, carbon dioxide is permanently removed out of the atmosphere. The process is the opposite of fossil fuel emissions, whereby carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere. The result is therefore called negative emissions.
“Biorecro is proud to receive this sign of recognition and support of its entrepreneurial approach of using BECCS to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” said Henrik Karlsson, President and CEO of Biorecro.
The BECCS technology has been tested in pilot facilities over the past decade and larger-scale storage is now being initiated. In 2013, a total of one and a half million tons of carbon dioxide per year will be stored away from the atmosphere in a handful of projects. In order to meet the climate change mitigation challenge, this capacity must be expanded rapidly. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), by 2050 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide need to be returned from the atmosphere into the ground using BECCS technology in order to effectively reach the two-degree target to avoid serious climate change.
Launched by Sir Richard Branson in February 2007, the Virgin Earth Challenge is a $25 million initiative for the successful commercialisation of ways of taking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and keeping them out with no countervailing impacts.
As of October 2011, the leading organisations in the Earth Challenge are: Biochar Solutions, from the US, Biorecro, from Sweden, Black Carbon, from Denmark, Carbon Engineering, from Canada, Climeworks, from Switzerland, Coaway, from the US
