Ebb Carbon's Project Macoma Secures First-of-a-Kind Permit

March 6th, 2025

Rendering of Project Macoma, Ebb Carbon’s marine carbon dioxide removal project in Port Angeles Harbor, Washington. Source: Ebb Carbon

In a first, the EPA in February permitted a two-year pilot project that will remove up to 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air, bind it in bicarbonate, and distribute the benign material in Port Angeles Harbor in Northwest Washington state. Adding a bit to the ocean’s natural storehouse of bicarbonate it is expected to slightly ease local acidification caused by pollution.

Ebb Carbon's project uses methods developed by physicist and marine researcher Matt Eisaman, who died February 28 at age 46.

The first-of-its-kind EPA permit authorizes a project to assess a new approach to pollution cleanup. If it works as many scientists expect, the Ebb project may help to establish a new class of tools for managing emissions of carbon dioxide from the industrial world's tailpipes, chimneys and smokestacks. Reducing those emissions is still the main solution for climate pollution, but decades of denial, resistance and failure have forced the world to begin learning to clean up the mess.