Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

44.01 was founded in July 2020 and its main objective is to make negative emissions feasible, accessible, secure, and scalable through CO2 storage via accelerated in-situ CO2 mineralisation in peridotite. 

In 2021, we completed the region‚ first pilot project of CO2 injection and in-situ mineralisation to prove our process is safe and to identify any potential risks we need to manage as we scale.

Naturally, we want to prove we can do this process at a commercial scale and with the main purpose of removing carbon in the atmosphere, thus Project Aria was born in 2021. Project Aria is a DACCM partnership with Climeworks (our DAC partner). Phase 1 consists of a pilot-scale DACCM in peridotite. We will capture approximately 11.5 tCO2/yr using a Climeworks DAC unit (DAC-1) and inject it underground on our site. Once we confirm the success of Phase 1 and incorporate the findings, we‚ ll move to Phase 2, to prove we can inject more CO2 in a single borehole and achieve large storage per borehole with low environmental impact. For that, at the mineralisation site, we‚ ll install Climeworks‚ state-of-the-art DAC units, the ORCAs, which can capture up to 4000 tCO2/year. This will also allow us to cut emissions from transportation to the site and contribute to our process being net negative. 

Project Aria will be the world‚ first DACCM project solely powered by renewable energy. Picture 1 (uploaded) shows Project Aria workshop under construction.

Regions of Operations:

Best Estimate of GHG Avoidance/Reduction of This Project (Tonnes CO2 Equivalent/Year):

Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

Climate change will have a pronounced impact in the Middle East, with experts predicting water shortages, migration and increasing risk of conflict as a direct result. Economies are heavily reliant on the Oil and Gas (O&G) industry and the transition to clean energy technologies in this region needs to be supported. 

We will empower the underrepresented in three ways ‚ 1) by integrating them into our team, 2) by helping to create favourable policies and 3) by engaging with communities.

Internally:
44.01 are a diverse multinational team, all with different skill sets and expertise. It is our intention to be open, honest, visible and inclusive in everything we do and we aim to align ourselves with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We hope to educate and inspire communities both nationally and internationally, through continuous engagement and feedback.

Our hiring policy is focused on bringing more diversity to the team on gender, age, and nationality, though favouring jobs for people with a national identity. Project Aria will be developed by our team, so we will be integrating diversity into the project directly. Also, as the O&G sector recedes, we will capture these resources, services and labour skills to create jobs, and utilise them in our project. This will allow the local labour force to learn new skills and grow with the industry, empowering people to take control of the problem first-hand.

Externally:
Policy - We are often invited to advise policy makers and government entities on their decarbonisation strategies. Through the successful execution of Project Aria, we‚ ll be educating and helping governments develop these strategies.

On the ground - Project Aria‚ mineralisation site is located in an arid region, far from the sea and isolated in the mountains. The closest village with about 100 inhabitants is 15km away and the closest city, Ibra, is 60km away, with ~50,000 inhabitants. We believe there are a couple of micro-communities in the region as well. We plan to develop workshops to engage with the identified communities and wider region. These will be focused on addressing legitimate concerns of the region as well as the project, educating the community and working on solutions together.

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