Europe's direct air capture (DAC) crown could be heading from Iceland to northern England.
Two UK startups and a veteran project developer have formed a joint venture, UnionDAC, that aims to build a plant capable of sucking 60,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year.
If successful UnionDAC would overtake Swiss startup Climeworks' DAC facility in Iceland, Mammoth, as Europe's largest.
The new venture brings together British carbon capture startups Airhive and Mission Zero Technologies with Progressive Energy, the low-carbon project developer behind the HyNet industrial decarbonisation cluster.
All three will hold shares in the new company, which intends to raise around £100m (€118m) to develop the plant, Bloomberg reports.
"We want the UK to really grab all bits of that and be the world leader through this project," John Egan, project director for industrial decarbonisation at Progressive Energy, told Bloomberg.
Nicholas Chadwick, CEO of Mission Zero, told the outlet the project brings together "bankable DAC technologies in a landmark endeavour."
DAC uses chemical processes to pull CO2 directly from the air before injecting it underground for permanent storage. Airhive uses fluidised-bed technology, while Mission Zero captures carbon through an electrochemical process. Both will install their modules at the Teesside site.
Mission Zero, founded in London in 2020, raised a £21.8m Series A in March 2024 led by 2150, with participation from World Fund, Fortescue, Siemens Financial Services and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the Bill Gates-backed climate fund. Stripe became the startup's first carbon removal customer in 2021.
Airhive, founded in 2022, is at an earlier stage of development. The startup has raised $2.2m to date, including from AP Ventures and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, according to PitchBook.
UnionDAC aims to begin sequestering CO2 in 2030 and reach its 60,000-tonne target by 2032. If it hits that milestone, it would overtake Climeworks' Mammoth plant, which can capture 36,000 tonnes a year at full capacity.
The plant will connect to the Northern Endurance Partnership's pipeline network, which will transport captured CO2 to storage sites beneath the North Sea. UnionDAC also plans to sell carbon removal credits to external buyers.