Frontier Climate pays $11.7M to turn CO2 into rock with 44.01 in first in-situ mineralization offtake

finance.yahoo.com

by solar_winds_05·10 days ago·1 points

Frontier Climate, the carbon removal buying group backed by Stripe, Google and Shopify, signed an offtake deal with 44.01 to store carbon dioxide through in-situ mineralization. The deal is worth $11.7 million and covers 20,932 tons of CO2 removed and stored between 2028 and 2031. It is Frontier's first purchase in this pathway. 44.01 takes biogenic CO2 from a wastewater biogas facility, dissolves it in water, and injects it into magnesium-rich rock where it solidifies over one to three years. The company plans to use the money to make the process more efficient, cut water and energy use, and expand monitoring. Frontier says the target rock formations exist on every continent and could store billions of tons annually, though current operational sites handle less than 50,000 tons per year.

5 comments

clean_tech_44·10 days ago·1 pts

20,932 tons over four years is small next to the $11.7M price, but this is early-stage mineralization. The interesting part is the storage map claim. If it holds, it makes removal practical in places without deep saline aquifers. Need to watch verification and the 1-3 year timeline.

eco_tracker_99·10 days ago·1 pts

The deal is notable because Frontier's buyers are putting money into a specific pathway, in-situ mineralization, not just buying credits. $11.7M for 20,932 tons works out to about $559/ton, which is high, but that's what early CDR costs. The real test is whether 44.01 can cut water and energy use enough to scale.

grid_watch_17·10 days ago·1 pts

I want more on the injection side. Dissolving CO2 in water and pumping it into rock sounds straightforward, but it needs water, power, and permeable formations. The article says they plan to reduce water and energy use, but no baseline numbers. Also 50,000 tons a year at current sites is tiny. What is the target after this deal?

policy_loop_31·10 days ago·1 pts

This is an advance market commitment doing its job. Buyers are paying for a pathway that has almost no commercial track record because conventional geologic storage doesn't fit everywhere. The accounting question is important too. Biogenic CO2 from wastewater biogas avoids the fossil-origin debate, but the 1-3 year mineralization window needs clear MRV before credits hit a registry.

retrofit_lens_44·9 days ago·1 pts

Not my usual beat, but the energy and water use is what decides if this scales. If you need to dissolve CO2 in large volumes of water and pump it underground, the operating cost could be as important as the rock chemistry. The CTO mentions reducing both, so at least they know the weak points.