Capturing Carbon at Scale: Jan Wurzbacher on Engineering Climate Solutions
Dr. Jan Wurzbacher, ETH alumnus and co-founder of Climeworks, joins host Susan Kish to talk about the urgent need—and emerging science—behind removing CO₂ from the atmosphere.
Born out of a vision shared with fellow ETH engineer Christophe Gebald, Climeworks has grown from lab experiments at ETH Zurich to building the world’s first large-scale direct air capture plants in Iceland. Jan explains the mechanics of carbon capture using sorbent materials, the challenges that Climeworks currently is facing in the context of scaling such a system, and how engineering and climate science must work together to meet the planet’s carbon removal targets. He also reflects on the importance of market creation, policy support, and public trust as Climeworks moves toward its ambitious goal of gigaton-scale CO₂ removal by 2050. This episode is a deep dive into innovation at the edge of climate action—and a rare look inside one of ETH Zurich’s most impactful spin-offs.
Download Read the transcript here (PDF, 96 KB) or listen to his story on Spotify and Apple Music.
Previous episodes can be found at PODCAST – ETH CIRCLE