EP19 - Climeworks

Climeworks and the challenge of Carbon Dioxide Removal: how Direct Air Capture (DAC) really works, who buys CO₂ removals and at what price, and what it takes to scale a climate technology from lab to industrial infrastructure.

Founded in 2009 in Zurich by Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher, two mechanical engineers from ETH Zurich, Climeworks is a global pioneer in Direct Air Capture — the technology that captures CO₂ directly from the atmosphere using renewable electricity and stores it permanently in basaltic bedrock. The Mammoth project in Iceland, launched in 2024, has a capacity of 36,000 tonnes per year, the world's largest commercial DAC facility.

In this episode we analyze the economics of CDR (Carbon Dioxide Removal): who the buyers are (major tech companies like Microsoft, Stripe, Shopify, and corporations seeking to offset hard-to-abate emissions), the current pricing for removals ($800–$1,000 per tonne), and what learning curve is needed to drop below $300. We discuss the B2B go-to-market playbook, EU and US carbon credit rules, technological risks of scaling, and how nature-based solutions compare—cheaper but less permanent. Essential for anyone wanting to understand the future of the carbon market.

• Come Climeworks scala impianti DAC modulari
• Chi paga per CDR oggi e perché