Article content

Microsoft Corp. and the Royal Bank of Canada have agreed to purchase carbon dioxide removal credits from Canada’s first commercial facility to suck carbon from the air.

Extracting carbon from the atmosphere is increasingly important to limit global warming to relatively safe levels. The world will likely need to extract billions of tons of CO2 from the air per year by mid-century, but current capacity is only a fraction of that amount. A wave of startups is trying to solve this problem using a variety of techniques, including deploying machines that perform what’s called direct air capture (DAC).

Article content

“We need to prove this thing works. We need to prove that we can actually build the projects we say we can build, and we need to actually extend credit to customers who over the last two years have made commitments about their future supply,” Damien said. Steel, CEO of Deep Sky. “If this supply doesn’t start appearing soon, we as a market will be in big trouble. »

Microsoft and RBC have agreed to purchase 10,000 tonnes of CO2 removal services over 10 years from Deep Sky, a Canadian project developer with a distinct approach to carbon removal: the company brings together multiple technologies on the same site, powered by a single energy source. source and channel the CO2 to the same storage well. Deep Sky is building a facility in Alberta that, once completed, is expected to house eight DAC units, each designed and built by a different startup.

Co-founder Fred Lalonde, who is also co-founder and CEO of Canadian travel agency and unicorn startup Hopper Inc., said he wasn’t going to “sit here and watch the world burn.”

Centralizing DAC units from different startups in one place will help reduce overheads and accelerate the pace of innovation, Lalonde said. It should also help free them from the headache of allowing CO2 storage and purchasing clean energy to power the machines that extract carbon from the air – a task that is increasingly becoming more difficult in the context of the AI ​​data center boom.

“They can quickly move through innovation cycles across a very large and diverse set of technologies, reducing costs, deployment times and overall scale potential,” said Brian Marrs, senior director of energy and carbon removal at Microsoft, which they called Deep Sky. a “playground for direct air capture”.

Article content

Dedicated corporate buyers, with hard-to-reach net-zero targets and deep pockets, have invested millions to help these startups grow, with Microsoft being a particular leader. The tech giant has set a goal of being carbon neutral by 2030, but its emissions have increased by more than 40% since 2020, driven in part by a push in AI that has put endanger its climate objectives.

Deep Sky expects its Alberta facilities to be operational by the end of March and providing credit to customers by June. With a capacity of 3,000 tonnes per year, it’s a small capacity but it will prove to buyers and investors that the technology works, according to Vice President of Carbon Markets Charlie Renzoni. Deep Sky is also working to build three much larger commercial sites across Canada, all of which have initial allocations of renewable energy from their local utilities.

Carbon removal is a growing part of companies’ decarbonization strategies, particularly for those seeking higher quality carbon credits in a failing market. Yet the Deep Sky deal represents just a tiny fraction of Microsoft’s overall carbon removal portfolio, which includes millions of tons purchased through projects such as Stockholm Exergi’s bioenergy and carbon capture Orsted A/S and direct air capture from 1PointFive and Heirloom Carbon Technologies. This is RBC’s first DAC purchase.

Steel believes that over the next 15 years it will become impossible to ignore the pressure on businesses and governments to reduce their emissions.

“What we’re trying to do at Deep Sky is invest and go as far along the innovation curve as possible so that when we inevitably reach a point where we have no choice,” he declared. “We actually have a scalable solution. »

Our website is the place for breaking news, exclusive scoops, long reads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Share this article on your social network