By I.C. Murrell, The Pine Bluff Commercial
Pine Bluff carbon removal company Graphyte was named one of 24 semifinalist businesses to receive a total of $1.2 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to accelerate their carbon dioxide removal technologies.
The contribution is part of President Joe Biden's Investing in America agenda, according to a news release, and is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The program is the Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchase Pilot Prize, which allows companies to compete for the opportunity to deliver carbon dioxide (CO2) removal credits directly to the DoE.
The Pilot Prize provides up to $35 million in total cash awards in the form of Carbon Dioxide Removal Credit Purchase Agreements from the DOE, according to the news release. Each semifinalist will receive $50,000 to help scale a diversity of carbon dioxide removal approaches across the pathways of direct air capture with storage; biomass with carbon removal and storage (which Graphyte performs); enhanced rock weathering and mineralization; and planned or managed carbon sinks.
Graphyte, the only Arkansas company honored in the program, has proposed to sell 30,000 carbon dioxide removal credits to the DOE over the prize period at $100 per credit, according to Graphyte CEO Barclay Rogers. That would mean a transaction of $3 million, the maximum Credit Purchase Agreement to be awarded for each of the 10 grand prize winners to be chosen.
"Carbon credit is a financial instrument an entity can purchase to get closer to carbon removal goals," Rogers said Monday. "It is used to offset an activity that emits greenhouse gases."
Why the DOE would purchase carbon credits, Rogers said, is that it's trying to indicate which credits are good and which are not good. The credits Graphyte and other businesses are proposing to sell, Rogers said, are high-integrity and sold to private clients.
Read the full article in The Pine Bluff Commercial.
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