By Peter Henderson
SAN FRANCISCO – Google, H&M, Stripe and other members of the climate-focused Frontier coalition will buy $80 million in carbon credits from a company that uses oil industry technology to capture paper mill emissions, and another company that stones used to do the same at sewage treatment plants.
While newly elected US President Donald Trump is expected to withdraw from an agreement to halt global warming and reduce support for carbon capture, companies in sectors such as technology and finance continue to support efforts to cut carbon removed from the atmosphere.
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Unlike efforts to use natural solutions to combat climate-damaging emissions, for example by planting trees, many technological solutions are still in their early stages and are far from absorbing the billions of tons per year needed.
To help lower the costs of the technologies, Frontier agrees to purchase credits from companies with technologies that they believe could eventually see costs drop to $100 per ton or less.
In the latest deals, Frontier said Tuesday that buyers had agreed to pay $48 million, or $214 per ton, for credits representing 224,500 metric tons of emissions from project developer CO280 between 2028 and 2030; and $32.1 million, or $447 per ton, for 71,878 tons from the startup CREW in New Haven, Connecticut.
CO280 attaches the carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, owned by oilfield services company SLB, to the smokestack of a paper mill, sucking up carbon initially captured by the trees used to make the paper.
CREW, meanwhile, adds carbon-attracting limestone to municipal wastewater treatment plant water, testing CO2 levels during treatment to calculate how much has been captured.
It’s a version of a much-discussed process to take advantage of the natural tendency of some rocks to capture CO2.
Hannah Bebbington, head of implementation at Frontier, said the two purchases reflect efforts to equip older industries with newer carbon technology.
“We are very excited about the opportunity for major industry players to integrate carbon removal technologies and offer carbon removal cheaply and at scale,” she said.
(Reporting by Peter Henderson; Editing by Sam Holmes)
