Arctic Capture 🧪 Genetically engineering bacteria for carbon capture

tl;dr: We are using CRISPR-cas12a technology on bacteria - along with advanced robotic systems to grow it autonomously - so that we can take in tons (literally) of CO2 and help reverse climate change!

Hey folks! We’re Ankit, Vignesh, and Connor, three Columbia University students and the co-founders of Arctic Capture.

Problem 1: Zero isn’t enough.

We can’t just go to zero emissions - don’t get us wrong, that’s critical. But we need to start taking in CO2 and eventually go net-negative to meet our climate targets and reverse some damage. We need to take in CO2 fast.

Problem 2: Biological carbon sequestration currently isn’t scalable enough to meet global demands.

Reforestation/afforestation projects, waste biomass removal projects, and blue carbon projects, while all necessary, lack the scalability needed to remove Gt/year. Whether they are issues of planetary space, secondary markets, or verifiability/additionality, these are all secondary as a means of taking in CO2 compared to Direct Air Capture.

Problem 3: DAC is too expensive.

Self-explanatory - these solutions cost $800-1300/ton. Ouch. The best solution we have but the economics just don’t work.

Solution: Exponential growth and robots 🤓

We are creating the first direct biological analog of DAC by editing bacteria to do the work for us - the same bacteria that ushered in the Great Oxidation Event about 2bn years ago. We use robots to harvest the bacteria autonomously to provide low-cost credits of the same quality as DAC (we also engage in the entire air → storage pipeline) but much lower in the cost curve and much closer to the $100/ton global goal. At scale, we think we can do it at ~$50/ton.

Excited to build! If you want to help, we’d love to talk to:

• robotics people
• genetic engineers
• anyone interested in offsetting their carbon emissions.

Reach out to us at hello@arcticcapture.com!

Best,

Ankit, Vignesh, & Connor