This Startup Is Pulling Money Out of Thin Air

There are a lot of BS startups out there… but this BS startup has the potential to make its investors a lot of very real money.

For some context, I need to share one of the biggest BS stories of the year.

The U.S. military says it will be carbon neutral by 2050.

Ha.

Those are big words for an agency with emissions larger than those of many industrialized nations.

What does this news mean?

Will we soon see tank-charging stations dotting the landscape? Will secret missile silos be exposed by giant windmills spinning atop them? Will our fighter jets suddenly come equipped with solar panels?

You know the answers.

It’s a lot of BS – a lot of potentially very lucrative BS.

Oh sure, the Pentagon will put a few solar panels on the roof. And it already has plans to purchase electricity from carbon-free sources. But in the end, the military will most likely reach carbon-free status the same way many “clean” companies have.

It’ll buy it.

It’s turning into a very big business… especially for one fast-moving startup.

The Pollution Vacuum

Just this week, an up-and-coming company called Climeworks announced it will build an industrial-scale carbon capture machine.

Starting two years from now, it’ll capture some 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year… just over half of what the U.S. military produces in emissions annually.

When the company launched, its nascent technology allowed it to pull just a tiny amount of pollution from the air. It bottled the carbon dioxide and sold it… mainly to beverage makers looking for some fizz.

But as the technology advanced, so did the company’s air-scrubbing capabilities.

These days, Climeworks gets just a tiny fraction of its revenue from selling to soda companies. The industry can take only so much gas. The excess gets mixed with salt and buried deep underground.

It’s an expensive process. And without customers who want or need all that CO2, you may be wondering how the company makes any money.

That’s where the BS comes in… the oh-so-profitable BS.

Climeworks has thousands of customers who pay it each month to remove CO2 from the atmosphere in their names.

Jetsetters, for instance, pay the company to help them clear their minds.

To them, the pollution they create flying from Malta to Buenos Aires doesn’t count if they pay a company in Iceland to scrub it from the air.

Some of the biggest names in the economy are on board too.

Microsoft, Shopify and Stripe are all Climeworks customers. Google, Meta Platforms and Apple are also investing in such ideas.

Apple, for instance, wants to be carbon neutral by 2030. Part of its strategy involves buying carbon credits… the final products of companies like Climeworks.

You see, for every ton of CO2 the company pulls from the air, it earns a carbon credit. Each credit is worth roughly $9.

As long as it costs less than what a carbon credit is worth to pull pollution out of the sky and put it in the ground, it is a viable business model. The company can sell those credits and earn a profit.

Right now… companies eager to claim they are pollution fighters are jumping in headfirst to get in on the action. It’s a small investment that helps them make a pretty big claim… without having to make painful changes to their businesses.

Is this corporate BS the way of the future?

In the short term… surely. It’s likely going to turn into a monstrous bubble oozing with speculative opportunity over the next decade.

In the long term… see above. Monstrous bubbles get popped.

For now, startup investors looking for a high-margin opportunity that’s largely backed by corporate largesse and government funding can’t do much better than this space.

Huge sums of money are being thrown around.

The space is economically insensitive. It’s backed by huge pockets. And, well, from what we’re told, the world will end without it.

That’s worthy of a few bucks.

Be well,

Andy