Climate tech firms receive $80 million for removing carbon from paper mills and sewage plants

Frontier coalition includes Google, Stripe, Shopify, Workday

Two start-ups to benefit from a deal

The market for removal credit is being scaled up as part of the efforts to increase its size

By Peter Henderson

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 17 - Google H&M Stripe, and other members of the Climate-focused Frontier Coalition will purchase $80 million in carbon credits from a company that uses oil industry technology to collect emissions at paper mills and another firm that uses rocks to do the exact same thing at sewage treatment plants.

While the U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will likely withdraw from an agreement to limit global warming and reduce support for carbon sequestration, companies from sectors such as tech and finance are continuing to back efforts to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Many tech-heavy solutions are at a very early stage, and far from achieving the billions of tonnes a year required.

Frontier will buy credits for technologies that it believes could eventually bring down the price to less than $100 per ton.

Frontier announced on Tuesday that buyers agreed to pay $48m, or $214 per metric ton for credits representing 224.500 metric tons between 2028 and 2020 from project developer CO280, and $32.1m, or $447 per ton for 71.878 tons, from New Haven, Connecticut startup CREW.

CO280 bolts carbon capture and storage technology (CCS), owned by oilfield services company SLB, onto the smokestack of a papermill. This suctions up the carbon that was originally captured by the trees that were used to make paper.

CREW adds limestone, which attracts carbon, to the water in municipal waste treatment plants. CO2 levels are tested before and after treatment to determine how much is captured.

This is a variation of a long-discussed method to take advantage of some rocks' natural ability to absorb CO2.

Hannah Bebbington is Frontier's head of deployment. She said that the two purchases were part of an effort to retrofit older industries using newer carbon technologies.

She said, "We're really excited about the potential for large industrial players integrating carbon removal technologies to start delivering carbon removal at scale and cheaply." (Reporting by Peter Henderson; editing by Sam Holmes).

(source: Reuters)