By Keeton Ross, Co-founder and President, Holocene
Like every good startup story, Holocene’s began in a university dorm room. During her time at Stanford in 2022, Anca Timofte, my co-founder and Holocene’s CEO, realized that some novel chemistry being researched at Oak Ridge National Laboratory had the potential to significantly impact the world and flip the direct air capture (DAC) space on its head.
With her husband Nick by her side, Anca built Holocene’s first prototype using parts purchased from Home Depot. Soon after, she convinced Tobias Rueesch, our other co-founder and CTO, and myself to pack up and join her in Knoxville to chase this dream.
Starting the year in 2023, it was just the three of us in a co-working space, facing the typical challenges of a startup, including long hours, limited resources and massive amounts of uncertainty. Within the next 6 months, we moved into our first office space, hired our first 5 employees, and were off to the races! Thank goodness the office has a ceiling now…
While our journey has been unique, perseverance, belief, and a good amount of luck has guided the way like it does for most start-ups. The journey’s just beginning, but here’s a bit more on how it’s played out.
What is direct air capture? Think of vacuums for the sky
Carbon management is the third waste management industry that has never come to fruition. Typically, humans dispose of waste in three ways: landfills, water systems, and the atmosphere. And if you look at it this way, we’ve thrown 10x more waste into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 than we’ve ever thrown trash into landfills. Carbon management focuses on addressing that problem and creating industrial solutions.
Under the carbon management umbrella, you’ve likely heard of direct air capture technology or DAC. DAC is essentially a giant vacuum for the sky. More specifically, they are industrial machines that pull CO2 directly from the air we breathe.
These machines take in air, electricity and water and spit out a pure stream of CO2 that can either be reused to make products that would have been made from oil and gas—or stored permanently underground.
DAC is an essential part of the carbon management puzzle because it will end up making up about 10-20% of the global net-zero equation. It will help bridge the gap when other decarbonization efforts, such as EVs, renewables and hydrogen, fall short. It’s the closest thing to a “safety valve” that we have in the climate ecosystem.
So, for Holocene and DAC more broadly, we’re kind of like the 21st-century trash man or garbage trucks. We’re taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and working with partners who can either reuse that CO2 in products or store it underground permanently. In that sense, CO2 utilization is like a recycling company, and CO2 storage is like a landfill operator.
A groundbreaking partnership: Google and Holocene
Holocene secured a major partnership with Google, which has committed to purchasing 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) services for $100 per ton, totaling a $10 million agreement. This deal supports Holocene’s scale-up, with a portion of the funds provided upfront. The services are expected to be delivered in the early 2030s when Holocene’s first commercial facility reaches a multi-hundred thousand tons capacity.
The agreement first stemmed from a conversation I had with Randy Spock, Google’s CDR lead, last October 2023. We aligned on the need for large-scale, low-cost CDR solutions and a long-term partnership. Google conducted extensive technical and commercial due diligence, resulting in their first, and only, bilateral or “1 on 1” CDR deal and Holocene’s largest customer agreement to date.
The official “handshake” of the deal back in May was surreal. Convincing Google to join us on this journey was a significant milestone for Holocene, and a testament to both the importance of our work and the STELLAR work our entire technical team has done to date.
Although waiting until September for the news to be announced was hard, it was worth the wait. Seeing the world get excited about the partnership was rewarding and reinforced the importance of our work happening here in Knoxville!
Why Tennessee? Community support
We’ve had the opportunity to build companies in various regions, including the Bay Area, Zurich, and the Pacific Northwest. Still, one of the standout reasons Knoxville—and Tennessee as a whole—truly excels is the strong support of its industrial community.
Tennessee is a place where things are made, and everyone involved in that process—utilities, equipment suppliers, regulators and more—has a voice through the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council (TAEBC). For Holocene, being part of TAEBC allows us to consistently engage with the industrial ecosystem, seek support, and stay connected as we scale our technology beyond the pilot phase.
Joining the movement: the future needs you
Clean energy technologies, such as residential solar, bioplastics, long-duration storage, fusion and electric aviation, often present immense potential and challenges when scaling these innovations. Transforming our economy to create more prosperity while drastically reducing emissions and environmental harm is no small task, and it requires an all-hands-on-deck approach.
If you’re not already involved in some aspect of the climate ecosystem, now is the time to jump in and make a difference. Your involvement is crucial, and if you’re already working toward climate solutions, keep up the good work.
Learn more about Holocene! And sign up for TAEBC updates to learn more about our members, advanced energy news and upcoming events. Or, if you’re not already a member, become a member today!