Carbon mineralisation company Arca has kicked off its pilot program with BHP, using mine tailings from BHP’s Mount Keith nickel west mine for air-to-rock carbon mineralisation.
The program has been supported with a CDN$1.25 million grant from the B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE) in Canada.
During the 18-month project, Arca will capture and permanently store atmospheric carbon dioxide from the mine tailings.
“Arca is truly a pioneer in engineered mineralisation for carbon removal,” CICE chief operating officer Todd Sayers said.
“The company’s powerful combination of world-leading science and innovation, team experience and global scaling strategy strongly aligns to the CICE mandate. With CICE’s support, Arca is in a great position to accelerate large-scale implementation.”
Arca helps mines to permanently remove CO2 from operations while still producing the metals needed to drive the global clean energy transition.
It does this by manipulating mine tailings to speed up the rate of carbon mineralisation, measure carbon capture and sell carbon dioxide remove credits.
“There is already far too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” Arca chief executive officer Paul Needham said.
“Support from CICE gives us an opportunity to rapidly pilot our negative emissions technologies with companies that produce critical metals for the clean energy transition.”