Spiritus Targets $100 Per Ton Carbon Capture Breakthrough

Los Alamos National Lab spinout Spiritus is making waves in the carbon removal space with a bold promise: Direct Air Capture at under $100 per ton. While current DAC systems cost between $600 and $1,000 per ton, Spiritus claims its unique approach can slash those costs by 90 percent. The company just secured $30 million in Series A funding to prove it.

Led by Aramco Ventures, the funding round included participation from Khosla Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, and TDK Ventures. This brings Spiritus' total capital raised to $41 million since emerging from stealth in September 2023. The timing couldn't be better, with direct air capture technologies racing to scale.

Why Passive DAC Changes the Game

>> RELATED: Spiritus Wants To Make Carbon Capture Affordable

Spiritus ditched the energy-intensive fans that plague traditional DAC systems. Instead, their Carbon Orchard uses passive air contacting to absorb CO2 from ambient air. Think of it like artificial trees bearing tennis ball-sized "fruit" made from a novel sorbent material. Each sphere has the surface area of an entire tennis court.

The real breakthrough isn't just in the sorbent, it's in how they release the captured carbon. Most DAC systems require heating sorbents to 900°C or higher. Spiritus developed a non-TVSA desorption process that operates at just 70-100°C, cutting energy consumption by more than half.

The technology isn't just theoretical. Spiritus partnered with heavy hitters like Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, and Meta through their collective $1 billion Frontier carbon commitment. That's serious validation from companies actually writing checks for carbon removal credits.

Three Projects, One Vision

The fresh capital will fund three major initiatives across North America. First up is a 1,000-ton pilot facility in New Mexico on Nambé Pueblo tribal land, expected to begin operations in early 2026. This facility will demonstrate the technology at industrial scale and provide critical operational data.

Then comes Orchard One in Wyoming, the crown jewel. This facility will capture 2 million tons of CO2 annually, making it one of the largest DAC+S (Direct Air Capture plus Sequestration) facilities in the United States. Spiritus partnered with Casper Carbon Capture to inject captured CO2 into deep underground rock formations for permanent storage.

The third prong extends internationally. Spiritus is working with Aramco to further develop the technology and scale deployments in Saudi Arabia, bringing passive DAC to regions with abundant solar energy and significant carbon storage capacity.

Recognition and Market Momentum

TIME Magazine named the Spiritus Carbon Orchard one of its 200 Best Inventions of 2024 in October 2024. The recognition came as the direct air capture industry gained serious momentum, with the DOE's Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program allocating $3.5 billion to establish large-scale facilities nationwide.

The market opportunity is massive. Industry experts estimate that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 will require removing 1-10 billion tons of CO2 annually. At today's costs, that's economically impossible. But if Spiritus hits its $100 per ton target, the economics suddenly work.

Company	Technology Type	Estimated Cost/Ton	Key Advantage
Spiritus	Passive DAC	$100 (target)	No fans, low-temp desorption
Climeworks	Solid sorbent DAC	$400-600 (by 2030)	Proven at scale, basalt storage
Carbon Engineering	Liquid solvent DAC	$600-1,000	Large-scale partnerships (Oxy)
Avnos	Hybrid DAC	$250 (near-term)	Water-positive approach

The competitive landscape shows Spiritus aiming for the most aggressive cost target. While others are incrementally improving existing approaches, Spiritus bet on fundamentally different technology. That's risky, but the potential payoff is huge if they can deliver on the $100 per ton promise.

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Why Oil Majors Are Backing Carbon Removal

Aramco Ventures leading this round sends a powerful signal. Oil majors increasingly view carbon capture as essential to their long-term strategies. With hard-to-abate sectors like aviation, shipping, and heavy industry still dependent on hydrocarbons, removing legacy emissions becomes just as important as preventing new ones.

Bruce Niven, Executive Managing Director of Strategic Venturing at Aramco Ventures, didn't mince words about the challenge. "Direct Air Capture has the potential to play an important role in decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors of the economy, but until now, it has been too expensive to be meaningful," Niven explained. "Breakthrough approaches like Spiritus are needed."

The involvement of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America adds manufacturing credibility. MHI brings decades of experience scaling industrial equipment, exactly what Spiritus needs to move from pilot to commercial production. TDK Ventures, known for backing deep tech startups, rounds out an investor base with both financial firepower and operational expertise.

The Los Alamos Connection

CTO Matt Lee spent a decade at Los Alamos National Lab developing nanostructured materials for everything from fusion energy fuel pellets to defense applications. His expertise in colloid science, where tiny particles of one material are suspended in another, proved perfect for creating the Spiritus sorbent. The material self-assembles from a colloidal solution, letting nature do the heavy lifting.

Lee partnered with a manufacturing plant outside Kansas City that he'd worked with during his Los Alamos days. Some personnel from that facility joined Spiritus, bringing critical expertise in scaling lab innovations to full production. They're already producing hundreds of kilograms of sorbent weekly, with plans to reach thousands of kilograms per week.

The sorbent uses easily available raw materials, keeping costs down while maintaining performance. Lee jokes that it's "the sorbent decathlon," excelling across multiple critical metrics: capture capacity, desorption temperature, material cost, durability, and scalability. That comprehensive performance is what attracted both investors and corporate buyers.

What Makes Orchard One Different

Forget massive industrial facilities with giant fans. The Carbon Orchard looks more like, well, an orchard. Treelike structures hold the tennis ball-sized sorbent spheres, which passively absorb CO2 as air naturally flows past them. When the spheres are saturated, they're collected and heated to release the captured gas.

Three key design choices set Orchard One apart:

1. Passive collection eliminates fan energy costs. Traditional DAC systems spend enormous amounts of electricity pushing air through capture units. Spiritus lets diffusion do the work, similar to how trees absorb CO2 naturally.
2. Modular design enables rapid scaling. Each orchard unit operates independently, so facilities can be built in phases. This reduces upfront capital requirements and allows optimization between deployment stages.
3. Low-temperature regeneration cuts operational costs. Running desorption at 70-100°C instead of 900°C+ means they can use industrial waste heat or low-grade thermal energy. This dramatically reduces the energy penalty.

The Wyoming location wasn't random. The state offers abundant renewable energy, proximity to geological storage sites, and existing energy infrastructure. Plus, Wyoming has been proactive in developing Class VI well permits for CO2 injection, streamlining regulatory pathways.

Policy Tailwinds and Market Drivers

The 45Q tax credit provides $180 per ton for DAC projects with geological storage, essentially guaranteeing profitability even before Spiritus hits its $100 per ton target. That policy support survived recent budget discussions and continues derisiking early-stage projects by covering substantial portions of removal costs.

Corporate demand is accelerating faster than many expected. Companies including Microsoft, Google, and Meta have purchased DAC credits as part of net-zero commitments, creating early market demand despite current high costs. Frontier's $1 billion carbon commitment specifically targets breakthrough technologies, exactly what Spiritus offers.

The numbers tell a compelling story. If Spiritus achieves its cost targets, they don't just win market share, they expand the entire market by making carbon removal economically viable at a climate-relevant scale. That's the kind of breakthrough that attracts strategic investors like Aramco and Mitsubishi.

From Pilot to Deployment

The New Mexico pilot facility represents the critical proving ground. At 1,000 tons annually, it's small enough to optimize quickly but large enough to demonstrate real-world performance. Early 2026 operations mean they'll have operational data before Orchard One breaks ground.

That sequencing matters. Investors want to see the technology work at scale before committing capital for megaton facilities. The pilot derisks Orchard One by validating capture rates, sorbent durability, energy consumption, and operational costs. Think of it as building the business case one zero at a time.

Cadieu expects to have "a handful of these projects before the end of the decade." That's ambitious but achievable with $41 million in capital, proven technology, and committed buyers. Each facility built provides more operational data, drives down costs through learning curves, and strengthens the business case for the next project.

What Success Looks Like

If Spiritus hits its targets, the implications extend far beyond one company's success. Direct air capture becomes a scalable tool for addressing legacy emissions, not just an expensive proof of concept. Hard-to-abate sectors get a practical path to net-zero. And oil majors like Aramco gain a credible decarbonization strategy while continuing to serve energy markets.

The Wyoming facility alone will remove CO2 equivalent to taking 340,000 pickup trucks off the road annually. Scale that across multiple sites and the impact becomes material. More importantly, sub-$100 costs enable entirely new applications, from carbon-neutral fuel production to direct offset programs for industries that can't electrify.

Competition in the DAC space is heating up, with multiple approaches competing for market share. That's healthy. Different technologies will serve different niches, and the market is large enough for multiple winners. Spiritus bet on passive collection and low-temperature desorption as the path to cost leadership. Now they have the capital and partnerships to find out if they're right.