Climatetech innovator Mote revealed it is establishing its first facility to convert wood waste into hydrogen fuel while capturing, utilizing, and sequestering CO₂ emissions resulting from its process.

It’s estimated that more than 500 MM metric t of wood and agricultural waste are generated every year in the U.S., which today is either disposed of via natural decay, landfills, or open-air burn, all of which return carbon to the atmosphere. With the engineering work of their first facility underway, Mote expects to produce approximately seven million kilograms of carbon-negative hydrogen and remove 150,000 metric t of CO₂ from the air annually. That’s equivalent to removing 32,622 cars off the road. Mote expects to start hydrogen production starting as soon as 2024.

“As the world’s first carbon removal project converting biomass to hydrogen, we are addressing the ever-growing demand for renewable hydrogen with a carbon-negative approach,” said Mote co-founder and CEO Mac Kennedy. “Our pioneered technology directly supports California in its carbon-neutrality goals by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with our wood waste conversion process. With this new facility, Mote is laying the groundwork for affordable hydrogen offerings on a global scale while also supercharging natural carbon removal processes.”

Mote’s proprietary integration of proven equipment in a novel process establishes this ground-breaking carbon removal and clean energy generation facility. Mote utilizes wood waste from farms, forestry, and other resources where it would otherwise be open-air burned for disposal, left to decompose, or sent to a landfill. Through gasification and subsequent treatment processes, the remaining CO₂ is extracted and permanently placed deep underground for ecologically safe storage.

Mote is also in discussions with carbon utilization company CarbonCure Technologies on the potential of permanently storing its CO₂ in concrete via CarbonCure’s carbon removal technologies, deployed in hundreds of CO₂ mineralization systems at concrete plants worldwide. Through this biomass-to-hydrogen process, Mote contributes to reversing climate change through the functional removal of carbon from the air and putting it deep underground or permanently storing it in concrete at construction sites.

Located near Bakersfield, the Mote facility aims to assist California in recycling the 54 MM metric t of wood waste generated annually. Mote is joined by Fluor Corporation and SunGas Renewables, Inc. to develop its new plant. The engineering firm Fluor will support the integration of proven equipment into the facility. In addition, SunGas Renewables, a subsidiary of GTI International (GTII), has entered into an Engineering Services Agreement with Mote to provide its gasification systems to the Mote California Central Valley Project.