Google, Meta, McKinsey: Carbon Removal Through Rivers
Experts say that to limit global warming in line with the Paris Agreement, carbon removal is essential.
Whilst reductions remain a priority, carbon reduction can complement this through counterbalancing hard-to-abate industries and addressing past emissions.
Frontier is a more than US$1bn advance market commitment (AMC) to purchase carbon removal before 2030 with founding members including McKinsey Sustainability, Alphabet, Meta, Shopify and Stripe.
The AMC has facilitated offtake agreements with CarbonRun to purchase US$25.4m of river liming carbon removal.
Nan Ransohoff, Head of Frontier and Head of Climate at Stripe, says: “River liming for carbon removal is cheap, scalable, and measurable. And yet it’s underexplored and underfunded relative to its potential.
“Moreover, CarbonRun’s work will help establish the foundation for more rigorous evaluation and measurement of aquatic approaches to carbon removal more broadly.”
What is river liming?
River liming is a well-established method of river de-acidification.
Crushed up limestone is added to acidified rivers to provide alkalinity, repairing damage caused by acid rain.
The practice has been successful at treating acid rain problems in Scandinavia.
River liming has been in a state of decline due to increased costs.
Meet CarbonRun
CarbonRun discovered that adding limestone increases rivers’ natural ability to extract carbon dioxide from the air.
Atmospheric and land-based carbon found in rivers combines with the limestone to produce bicarbonate, which ends up in the open ocean for permanent storage.
CarbonRun is based in Nova Scotia, Canada and was founded in 2022.
Luke Connell, Cofounder and CEO at CarbonRun, explains: “Beyond removing tons of CO₂, this offtake will enable us to do the research on river liming’s potential in different kinds of rivers.
“Those findings will make the difference between a pathway that is promising into one we can potentially deploy safely and at scale, putting it on the map as a serious contender for gigaton-scale carbon removal."
Frontier’s investment aims to remove more than 5,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2025 and 2029.
The cost of river liming
Frontier says CarbonRun has a credible, near term trajectory to carbon removal costing less than US$100 per ton.
River liming is already a well-understood and researched practice, so these costs are achievable without any new technological breakthroughs.
Limestone is widely available and cheap, with one tonne costing around US$70.
Limestone dosers are a simple and inexpensive proven technology, and can be largely automated to limit labour costs.
About Frontier
Frontier’s founding members are Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, McKinsey Sustainability and Stripe.
Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Google, says: “This is an especially exciting deal because it represents Frontier’s first offtake deal for marine carbon removal.
“CarbonRun joins the ranks of other promising technologies in Frontier’s portfolio that have potential to help our planet remove billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere in the long run.”
It has facilitated purchases on behalf of these members as well as Salesforce, Autodesk, H&M Group, JPMorganChase and Workday.
Other companies have also purchased through Watershed’s partnership with Frontier, including Zendesk, Canva, Match Group and SKIMS.
******
Receive the next edition of ClimateTech Magazine by signing up for its newsletter.
As part of this portfolio, make sure you check out Sustainability Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series - Sustainability LIVE.
Also check out our Sister Brand, Energy Digital.
*****