Dutch startup Skytree has opened a new headquarters in Toronto, Canada and a new office in Nashville, Tennessee, to take advantage of attractive government incentives for DAC (direct carbon capture) technologies.
Engineer-turned-entrepreneur Max Beaumont founded Skytree in 2014 following his work on DAC for the European Space Agency. Skytree's technology is based on the carbon scrubbers used aboard the International Space Station, which remove excess CO2 produced from astronauts' breath.
Direct air capture
DAC machines suck CO2 out of the air like a giant vacuum cleaner. The CO2 they capture can be buried or buried underground mineralized into rock for construction. It can also be used to make anything out of it cleaner chemicals To sustainable aviation fuel for airplanes.
“Skytree is one of the few companies in the world whose DAC units are already successfully used in this area,” said CEO Rob van Straten. “We are committed to providing industry partners with a viable and economical way to convert atmospheric CO2 into valuable inputs – or store it safely and indefinitely underground.”
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Skytree has built two carbon suction devices. First: Skytree Cumulusproduces 20 kg of CO2 every day. It is aimed at small-scale applications such as vertical farming and cannabis cultivation. Farmers use the gas to stimulate plant growth.
The other unit, Stratus, is much larger. It captures up to 1000 kg of CO2 per day. Skytree developed Stratus for industrial-scale applications, such as large greenhouses and green cement plants or for underground installations.
The Stratus units are modular in design so they can be stacked to form a much larger machineytree calls this “Stratus Hub.” The startup plans to build one of these hubs at its location in Amsterdam. Once the machine is operational, the company expects it will suck in 50,000 tons of CO2 per year.
Skytree was developed over more than a decade said it had reached level 9 on the technology readiness scale, the highest possible. This means Skytree is ready for large-scale commercial deployment, a rarity in the emerging carbon capture industry.
Skytree's first customers were largely greenhouses. The company also recently announced this Plans to install a Stratus unit in the offices of Deep Sky, a fellow DAC company from Canada. Now the company wants to expand and move into new industries, including food and beverage.
Benefit from financing climate technology
“The U.S. continues to see growing demand for proven, cost-effective and scalable DAC technology, driven by industry needs and with government support,” said van Straten.
Skytree said it chose Nashville as its office location in part because of its proximity to its production partner Scanfil. The Swedish company will manufacture the Stratus and Cumulus machines at its factory in the nearby city of Atlanta.
Skytree said it chose Toronto as its North American headquarters because of the city's strong climate technology ecosystem and access to talent. In addition to Deep Sky, Skytree already has a partnership with Canadian vertical farming company Fieldless Farms, which uses captured CO2 to improve the yields of its strawberry plants.
“As part of Toronto’s passionate climate-focused tech community, I am confident that Skytree will have a significant impact not only here but around the world,” said Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.
Skytree expects to employ 80 people at its new headquarters over the next three years. The company also plans to build its own manufacturing facility at an undisclosed location in Canada.
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