Arca partners with BHP to develop world’s first carbon mineralization pilot project at an active mine

Arca, the carbon mineralization company, announced that the B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE) provided the company with a CDN$1.25M grant. The funding will be used to support a pilot project that begins today for air-to-rock carbon mineralization using the mine tailings in BHP’s Mt Keith Nickel West Mine in Australia.

CICE chose to provide the grant to Arca as it is one of the first companies commercializing mineralization for the capture and storage of atmospheric CO₂ that is supported by leading-edge scientific research and technology development. With this grant, Arca is now set to implement and scale its solution in a global setting.

The 18-month project will test and verify Arca’s methodology to capture and permanently store atmospheric carbon dioxide and demonstrate to the mining industry that Arca’s technologies can integrate safely and successfully at an operating mine site.

“Arca is truly a pioneer in engineered mineralization for carbon removal. The company’s powerful combination of world-leading science and innovation, team experience and global scaling strategy strongly aligns to the CICE mandate,” said Todd Sayers, Chief Operating Officer of CICE. “With CICE’s support, Arca is in a great position to accelerate large-scale implementation.”

Arca enables mines to permanently remove CO₂ while producing the metals needed to drive the clean energy transition. Using rovers, surface manipulation technology and machine learning algorithms, Arca manipulates mine tailings to significantly speed up the rate of carbon mineralization; measure critical carbon capture; and sell carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits that are verifiable and permanent. This process is unique because atmospheric CO₂ is captured and stored in a single step.

“Canadian innovators are leading the way to a more prosperous, low-carbon, economic future, including through the deployment of carbon management technologies. Canadian leadership in carbon management technology extends to every industrial sector, including mining. Arca’s innovative air-to-rock carbon mineralization project is an example of technology we need to accelerate towards a net-zero future by 2050, while attracting investment and reducing emissions today. As part of Canada’s Carbon Management Strategy, the Federal Government is pleased to support these developments across the country, including with our British Columbian partners at the CICE,” said the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources.

“CICE’s grant represents a significant milestone for Arca as it allows us to fast-track our ability to bring our technology and innovation to mining companies around the world and accelerate our collective mission to support a net-zero carbon future,” said Dr. Greg Dipple, co-founder of Arca.

“There is already far too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” said Paul Needham, Arca CEO. “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.”

Arca works with producers of critical metals around the world, helping them assess and quantify the carbon mineralization potential of their mine tailings.  The company’s technology has been recognized with a US $1M XPRIZE Milestone Award for Carbon Removal, two Foresight50 awards, and is supported by Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Programme (NRC IRAP), Lower Carbon Capital and the Grantham Foundation. Arca has already pre-sold hundreds of tonnes of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits to Shopify and Frontier.

The B.C. Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE) is an independent, not-for-profit corporation that grants early-stage funding to fast-track the commercialization of British Columbia’s most impactful clean energy solutions – from Canada to the world. We match the urgency and efficiency of the companies we fund, driving innovation like the planet depends on it. Because it does.

Arca is the carbon mineralization company. The company is working to stop – and reverse – climate change by capturing carbon dioxide from the air and transforming it into rock. Co-founded by Dr. Greg Dipple and other geoscientists from the University of British Columbia, Arca has developed technologies that accelerate a natural geochemical process called carbon mineralization. Arca works with producers of critical metals to decarbonize their mining operations and scale production of carbon-negative metals and minerals for the clean energy transition.