Professor Steven Chu Visits Carbonology
Professor Steven Chu Visits Carbonology
Shanghai Lingang
2026.08
About Professor Chu
Professor Steven Chu was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 for the “development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light”. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor Chu graduated from the University of Rochester in 1970 with bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and physics, and earned his PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1976. He then spent nearly a decade at Bell Laboratories. After joining Stanford University, he served as a professor and department chair in physics, and from 2004 to 2009 was director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. From 2009 to 2013, he served as U.S. Secretary of Energy before returning to Stanford as Professor of Physics, Molecular & Cellular Physiology, and Energy Science and Engineering.
When Professor Chu announced his resignation as Secretary of Energy in February 2013, he left these words: “The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones; we transitioned to better solutions.” The quote is often used to describe his research efforts over the past decade and more in clean energy and carbon capture. Professor Chu is a vocal advocate for more research into renewable energy and nuclear power, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combating climate change.
Recap
Tour
01
Accompanied by the Carbonology team, Professor Chu toured the company’s full process line at its Lingang R&D center: solid-sorbent DAC units that capture CO₂ directly from the air, a CO₂ reduction unit that converts CO₂ and water into syngas, and innovative Fischer–Tropsch reactors.
Carbonology in the Spotlight
02
Carbonology walked Professor Chu through its technology roadmap and latest progress. The company is currently building a kiloton-scale DAC pilot project in the Ningdong Chemical Industry Park in Ningxia, which runs entirely on renewable power and uses AI for flexible process control.
The company is following a three-step plan:
a 100-tonne-scale process demonstration in Shanghai’s Lingang in 2025,
a kiloton-scale pilot base in Ningdong, Ningxia in 2026,
and a commercial project with global expansion in 2027.
Professor Chu expressed his interest in Carbonology’s business model. Rather than simply storing the captured CO₂, turning it into chemicals and fuels with genuine market demand is what makes a sustainable commercial loop possible, and what moves DAC toward real commercialization.
A Talk by Professor Chu
03
In his keynote, Professor Chu began with the state of the climate. Even if emissions stopped today, he noted, the thermal inertia of the oceans would push the real temperature rise 50 to 100 years down the road. What we see now is only the lag effect, so meeting our temperature targets will require moving to net zero quickly. He then reviewed the main DAC technology routes on the table today. Professor Chu wrapped up by noting that scaling up and cutting costs will largely hinge on continued declines in renewable electricity prices, and closed with a Q&A with the Carbonology team.
