CO280, a leading developer of large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects, has officially signed off on a historic offtake agreement with Microsoft from a project, which is designed to capture and permanently store biogenic carbon emissions from a U.S. pulp and paper mill.
Under the agreed terms, Microsoft will purchase 3.685 million tonnes of CDR over 12 years, representing one of the largest engineered CDR purchases till date.
More on that would reveal this development effectively validates CO280’s approach to scaling permanent CDR by retrofitting existing pulp and paper mills to capture biogenic CO2 from boiler stack emissions for permanent geological storage.
At present, CO280 is working on more than 10 projects, with five high-priority projects poised to deliver CDR by 2030.
“The agreement with Microsoft is a significant milestone for CO280 and the CDR market,” said Jonathan Rhone, co-founder and CEO of CO280. “CO280 is committed to delivering the highest quality, permanent carbon dioxide removal while supporting the economic and environmental health of the communities we serve. We’re incredibly grateful to Microsoft for their collaboration, leadership, and commitment to CDR excellence.”
Talk about the benefits of CO280’s approach on a slightly deeper level, we begin from its promise to provide rapid scalability. In essence, U.S. pulp and paper mills are known for emitting 88 million tonnes of biogenic CO2 per year. This showcases a significant opportunity to implement large-scale CDR. For better understanding, retrofitting mills with carbon capture allows you to bank upon existing mill infrastructure and biomass supply chains, something which should reduce project complexity, cost, and risk.
Having said so, CO280’s approach will still come in handy for standardizing project design and business model across the board. The company will achieve that using financial support from several of its pulp and paper partners. Once achieved, such standardization should tread up a long distance to accelerate replication and deployment.
Anyway, next up, we have the potential for sustainable biomass utilization. To offer some context, the American pulp and paper industry has long committed itself to protecting forest health and maintaining high certification standards.
97% of wood used in the industry, in fact, goes to mills with Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certification, whereas on the other hand, 90% goes to mills with both Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and SFI certifications. Beyond that, many of those mills also stick to residual biomass and recycled content for making pulp.
Hence, in the present context, we ought to mention how all CO280 projects will adhere to these leading voluntary carbon market biomass sustainability standards.
Another detail worth a mention is rooted in the goal to generate optimal energy efficiency. This means CO280 projects will use excess waste heat and/or waste biomass to power the carbon capture plants all for the purpose of minimizing environmental impact, while simultaneously increasing the projects’ overall sustainability at the same time.
Rounding up highlights would be the proximity that CO280 will achieve when it comes to C02 storage. In case you weren’t aware, U.S. has some of the best geology in the world for CO2 storage, with more than 75% of U.S. pulp and paper mills located within 100 miles of geologic storage sites.
Complementing this would be the country’s growing network of CO2 transportation and storage service providers that are building the infrastructure to safely and permanently sequester captured CO2.
Among other things, we must touch upon the way CO280’s partnership with Microsoft will advance critical climate goals, as well as stimulate the local economies and create jobs for communities where pulp and paper mills are located.
“Microsoft is pleased to announce this deal with the team at CO280, which has proven how to combine innovative engineering with strong commercial development towards creating affordable and scalable carbon removal solutions. The CO280 strategy of adding carbon removal to existing paper mills is an efficient way to quickly scale carbon removal and bolster investment and jobs into timberland communities across the United States,” said Brian Marrs, Senior Director of Energy & Carbon Removal at Microsoft.
