Google, Salesforce, H&M and other brands have turned to unlikely allies for help cleaning up their carbon pollution: sewage treatment plants and paper mills. The companies joined an $80 million plan to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, although the strategies they are using have not yet shown whether they can have a meaningful impact on climate change.
They're paying $32.1 million to a startup called Crew that aims to curb carbon dioxide emissions produced in wastewater treatment facilities. And $48 million will be given to another startup called CO280 that retrofits pulp and paper mills with controversial carbon capture technologies. Two agreement Facilitated by a carbon removal initiative Called Frontier, it's led by Stripe, Google, Shopify, and McKinsey Sustainability on behalf of founding companies and other brands trying to meet their own sustainability goals.
Companies are looking for ways to reduce the harm caused by their greenhouse gas emissions
Companies are looking for ways to reduce the harm caused by their greenhouse gas emissions. They've invested millions in startups building innovative industrial plants that filter CO2 from the atmosphere Air Or sea waterFrontier’s latest announcement shows that they are ready to support even more new strategies to reduce carbon dioxide.
“We need to look at a variety of approaches,” says Will Burns, co-director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University, who is also part of an evaluation committee for Frontiers. “Some of these approaches are still extremely expensive, especially direct air captureSo we're looking for ways that are potentially less expensive.”
The first generation of industrial facilities built over the past decade or so to filter CO2 from the air is said to direct air capture — cost companies Over $600 including Microsoft per ton of carbon captured. Recent deals struck by Frontier came to about $447 per ton for CO2 removal by crew (for a total of 71,878 tons), and $214 per ton for CO2 removal services (for a total of 224,500 tons).
he's still up high $100 per ton Industry leaders often say they are setting goals. and was responsible for companies like Google 14.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution last year, you can see how prohibitively expensive The technology is still there.
While Crew's strategy is more expensive, Burns says he's particularly excited by its potential. The idea is to capture carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released by microbes breaking down organic waste in water treatment tanks. To do this, the crew adds alkaline minerals to the tanks. Those minerals react with the CO2 microorganisms produce, trapping it in the water as bicarbonate. Ultimately, bicarbonate travels with treated wastewater into the oceans, which are natural sinks that keep CO2 out of the atmosphere.
CO280, on the other hand, uses technologies initially developed by the fossil fuel industry to capture CO2 emissions from smokestacks before they escape into the atmosphere. This type of equipment has been added to industrial facilities power plants In the past, and could collect CO2 which companies could then dump back into the ground draining inaccessible oil reserves,
CO280 takes a different approach by adding carbon capture devices to facilities that burn “black liquor,” a bi-product from pulp manufacturing that is used to generate heat and electricity. The devices are supposed to capture CO2 from burning black liquor so that it can be stored permanently in underground wells. Since the fuel is made from trees, this process essentially sequesters the CO2 that those trees had captured through photosynthesis during their lifetime.
Of course, there are still major concerns About how effective carbon capture technologies are as a way to mitigate climate change. They use too much energyWhich produces its own greenhouse gas emissions. Cutting trees and transporting wood to paper mills also creates additional emissions, and it can be difficult to ensure that plantations are managed sustainably.
Companies that buy carbon removal services also face criticism from environmentalists it's distracting More significant efforts to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. At the end of the day, the only surefire way to stop climate change is to stop the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels that are causing the crisis in the first place.