The largest companies involved in the field of cloud technologies, together with tech giants of various profiles, are going to allocate almost a billion dollars to acquire carbon capturers. Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta * and McKinsey are ready to join the Frontier project.

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Shopify became Carbon Engineering’s first commercial customer last year, with an agreement to remove 10,000 tons of emissions from the atmosphere. In March 2021, Microsoft signed a memorandum of understanding with Danish Orsted and startup Aker Carbon Capture, committing to remove carbon dioxide using special capture technology.

Until 2030, it is planned to allocate $925 million as part of the Frontier project; companies have adopted the so-called. “Advance Market Commitments” (ANC), which provide for the purchase of equipment for capturing and storing carbon emissions. It is expected that the initiative of large companies will stimulate the sale of similar equipment and services that contribute to the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere around the world. Some of the participating companies intend to attract their own clients to financing on a voluntary basis.

It is known that annually 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide are emitted into the atmosphere. According to experts, today it is necessary to remove from the atmosphere 5-10 billion tons per year, a million times more than commercial cleaning provides now. For example, Climeworks built Iceland’s first commercial project to directly capture carbon dioxide, “recycling” a tonne of carbon dioxide costs $1,200, and 4,000 tons are recycled annually.

The Frontier initiative will have a staff of technical and commercial experts who will procure special services on behalf of the participating companies, and over time, new businesses will be invited to participate in the project. It is not yet known how much emissions the allocated money will be enough for, as capture and cleanup technologies are rapidly evolving.

Frontier will look for technologies that store carbon for more than 1,000 years without needing large tracts of land. Affordable solutions will be preferred, ideally as low as $100 per tonne and scalable to large scale emissions, for projects generating more than 0.5 gigatonnes per year. Of course, projects should not use large amounts of fossil fuels to offset their benefits. And, of course, technologies must be legal, safe, and have a scientific basis.

* Included in the list of public associations and religious organizations in respect of which a court has made a final decision to liquidate or ban activities on the grounds provided for by Federal Law No. 114-FZ of July 25, 2002 “On Counteracting Extremist Activity”.