By Amanda Stephenson
CALGARY, June 29 (Reuters) – Canada’s Deep Sky became the first North American company to deliver verified carbon removal credits from direct air capture technology, announcing on Monday it provided credits to Microsoft and Royal Bank of Canada.
DAC differs from the more established carbon capture and storage technology, which filters out CO2 at industrial plants and stores it before it reaches the atmosphere. DAC removes carbon from the air, cleaning up emissions that have already occurred.
“This shows Canada is building, is taking the risks, and it puts us on the map for innovation in carbon removal,” said Deep Sky CEO Alex Petre in an interview.
The only other company that has generated DAC credits is Climeworks, whose Iceland facility is the world’s largest DAC complex.
While scientists have said DAC is critical to stabilizing the climate, the technology is expensive and difficult to scale up.
But high-quality, verified carbon removal credits are in demand worldwide. Tech companies, many of whom have made climate commitments but are producing increased greenhouse gas emissions to power the AI data center boom, have collectively spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying credits from carbon capture and storage projects.
“People really want this to work, because they continue to sign contracts. However, very few projects have actually been delivered,” said Petre.
Deep Sky’s Alberta pilot facility, which began operations last summer and is expected to capture 3,000 metric tons of CO2 annually, is designed to allow multiple DAC companies to deploy and fine-tune their technologies.
The credits, verified by London-based climate tech certification company Isometric, are the result of Deep Sky’s first injection in May of 14 tons of carbon underground.
Regular injections continue, and Microsoft and RBC will receive credits quarterly.
Deep Sky also has carbon credit deals with TD Bank, Lufthansa and France’s Engie. The companies have not disclosed financial terms.
Petre said once Deep Sky’s Alberta test hub is fully established, the company plans to develop a large-scale commercial DAC project in Canada.
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in CalgaryEditing by Rod Nickel)
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