Climeworks ended beverage CO2 sales and pivoted to burying carbon permanently underground
In 2022 Climeworks completed the commercial phase of its pioneering Hinwil plant, phasing out first-generation tech to focus on permanent CO2 storage.
What was changed
Swiss company Climeworks opened its Capricorn direct air capture plant in Hinwil, Switzerland in 2017, becoming the first company to suck CO2 out of the air and sell it as a product. The plant first supplied CO2 to a nearby greenhouse, then from 2019 sold it to Coca-Cola HBC Switzerland to carbonate mineral water — the first use of direct air capture in the beverage industry. Capricorn's existence alone was a milestone for the brand-new carbon removal industry.
But the model undermined itself: carbonated drinks eventually release the CO2 back into the atmosphere, and Capricorn, a demonstration project, captured only a few hundred tons a year. In October 2022 Climeworks announced it had completed the commercial operation phase at Hinwil, leading to the phase-out of its first-generation technology; press manager Judith Hebekeuser confirmed the plant was no longer capturing CO2.
The company now prioritizes "scaling its permanent carbon dioxide removal" at Hellisheiði, Iceland, where basaltic rock stores CO2 near the capture site. Its Orca plant, opened in September 2021 as the largest operating direct air capture plant, removes 4,000 tons a year. With partner Carbfix, each ton of captured CO2 is mixed with about 27 tons of water and injected underground to turn into carbonate minerals. Mammoth broke ground in June 2022 and is expected to capture nine times more than Orca.
Why it worked
Carbonating beverages re-releases the captured CO2, so the product sales never permanently removed carbon.
Capricorn was a demonstration project capturing only a few hundred tons a year — far too small to dent climate change.
Iceland's young basalt formations let Climeworks store CO2 permanently next to the capture facility, unlike Hinwil.
What can be applied
A pioneering first product can be a dead end when its use case undoes the mission: phase it out and concentrate the company on the outcome that counts.
Aftermath
Capricorn stopped capturing CO2, closing its commercial chapter five years after opening. Climeworks now frames itself around permanent removal: Orca operating at 4,000 tons a year and Mammoth under construction at nine times Orca's size. The Verge called the shutdown another turning point for the young industry, while noting technology, economics and policy still have far to go.