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CO2 capture project hopes to bring 'quality' jobs

Louise Parry
BBC News, Norfolk
Jamie Niblock/BBC Two women wearing high vis jackets and hats stand inside the direct air capture container. There are many grey pipes pointing up and down and wires plugged into the system.Jamie Niblock/BBC
Mission Zero said its operation was the world's first commercial site using direct air capture to produce "carbon negative" building material

A company behind one of the UK's first carbon capture projects hopes to provide "high quality green jobs" in the region.

Mission Zero's direct air capture plant at Wretham in Norfolk will remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and use it to create limestone building materials.

"We're demonstrating one of the pioneering processes of the future in an area you wouldn't normally associate with it," said Nicholas Chadwick, co-founder of Mission Zero.

O.C.O. Technology, which produces the limestone aggregate, said: "A significant number of construction projects in the locality are going to have a lower carbon footprint".

Jamie Niblock/BBC The Direct Air Capture plant seen from the outside, built around a grey shipping container. Three people in high-vis outfits stand by the open double doors. On top of the container are four large units each containing four black circular fans. To the left is a tall green rectangular unit with health and safety symbols on.Jamie Niblock/BBC
Large fans help to capture CO2 which is dissolved into a liquid before being regenerated back into a gas

O.C.O. is already up and running in Wretham, turning fly ash or slag into "sustainable aggregate" for use in roads and buildings.

It previously had to import manufactured CO2, but will now also be able to use the gas captured on site by the Mission Zero system, which the two companies claim is a world first.

Direct carbon capture is seen as one of the solutions to climate change, as it removes CO2 from the atmosphere and locks it away. Levels of CO2 have risen by 40% since 1900 and are causing the planet to warm rapidly, along with other heat-trapping gases like methane.

Graham Cooper, managing director of O.C.O Technology, said: "Direct air capture is so necessary to reaching net zero and reducing carbon in the atmosphere".

He said it was "important that people can feel their region is contributing to moving things forward".

Jamie Niblock/BBC Graham Cooper in front of a pile of limestone aggregate. He wears an orange hard hat with O.C.O on it and an orange hi-vis vest over a blue and white pinstriped shirt. He has black rimmed goggles on.Jamie Niblock/BBC
Graham Cooper says OCO takes industrial waste products and treats them with CO2 to manufacture limestone

Dr Chadwick said it was important for people with the relevant skills from other industries to become part of the "green transition".

"These are high quality, complex jobs. Come and use your skills to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere," he said.

He added that Mission Zero was about "redefining humanity's relationship with carbon".

"Carbon has made the world good, it's provided everything we've needed – it's just where we get the carbon from is the issue.

"Usually it's from an unsustainable source: fossil fuels. But CO2 from the atmosphere can be used to displace that," he said.

Jamie Niblock/BBC Nicholas Chadwick standing outside the air capture plant, wearing sunglasses with protective goggles over the top. He wears a black and white t-shirt and a high vis vest and baseball cap.Jamie Niblock/BBC
Nicholas Chadwick says he is "over the moon" that carbon capture is being used to produce "a valuable product"

Dr Chadwick is not daunted by the scale of the task.

The UK emitted an estimated 406.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2022, whereas Mission Zero's plant is able to remove 250 tonnes of CO2 per year.

"It's a real working chemical plant sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere and locking it away so it can't warm the planet again.

"You need to prove the tech, scale it, make it cheap.

"The 2020s is about demonstrating this is real, not a magic far-flung thing that could happen in decades to come," he said.

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