Kenyan start-up aiming to generate carbon credits from thin air

By Jefferson Kahinju and Hereward Holland

In the scrublands of central Kenya, technicians monitor four large metallic tanks where steam heated by the Earth’s crust is used to pull carbon dioxide from the air in an effort to limit global warming.

Sitting astride the Great Rift Valley, a tectonic scar running around 7,000 kilometres (4,300 miles) down Eastern Africa, Kenya generates almost half its energy from geothermal plants, which spew out an abundance of excess heat and cheap energy.

That makes it well positioned to pioneer the use of Direct Air Carbon Capture, said Hannah Wanjau, an engineer at Octavia Carbon, which designed and built the machines.

DACC is an energy-intensive process that sucks air across a chemical filter which, when saturated with the greenhouse gas, is heated in a vacuum to release the CO2, that can be bottled or stored underground.

East Africa’s most developed economy also benefits from a surfeit of