Frontier, the carbon removal buyer group backed by Google, Shopify, and Stripe, has brokered an $11.7 million purchase agreement with 44.01, a startup that stores CO2 by turning it into rock. The deal covers about 21,000 tons of carbon removal between 2028 and 2031. It is Frontier's first purchase using in-situ mineralization, a process where CO2 is dissolved in water and injected into peridotite formations, triggering chemical reactions that lock the carbon into solid carbonates. 44.01 will capture CO2 from a wastewater treatment plant in the United Arab Emirates and inject it into rock formations on the country's east coast. Frontier says the approach could expand permanent storage options where conventional underground storage is too expensive, and that reactive rock formations could store more than 5 billion tons of CO2 annually. The project is small, but it will be one of the first continuous injection trials for in-situ mineralization, providing an early test of commercial-scale viability.
