The GRT Story

GRT was founded on the shared vision and unique capabilities of four people: Gary Comer, Allen Wright, Klaus Lackner and Wally Broecker. After sailing through the Northwest Passage in 2001 without being blocked by ice, Gary Comer was convinced that climate change was real. He vowed to take action.

Comer’s experience sparked his relationship with Wally Broecker, the Newberry Professor and a Crafoord Prize climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. In 2003, Broecker introduced Comer to Klaus Lackner and Allen Wright. Lackner, a widely recognized world leader in energy technologies, had developed the concept of carbon dioxide air-capture and written papers on carbon sequestration while at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Subsequently, Broecker convinced Lackner to join Columbia University as the Ewing Worzel Professor of Geophysics. Broecker had hired Wright to manage the interface between facilities and researchers at Biosphere 2 when that facility was operated by Columbia. He recognized Wright’s demonstrated ability to turn novel concepts into reality.

GRT was born in 2004, funded by Comer’s generosity and based on the strongly held belief of its founders that climate change solutions can and must be found. In 2007, GRT announced that it had successfully demonstrated that air-capture of carbon dioxide is technically feasible and economically promising. Currently it is refining and expanding its suite of air-capture technologies consistent with its mission.