Google, McKinsey and Stripe are among the backers of ‘three-in-one’ carbon removal technology

Frontier, a carbon-removal buyers coalition founded by Google, McKinsey, Stripe and others, is investing $41 million in a startup that’s developed a “three-in-one” technology that can generate electricity or hydrogen while simultaneously capturing carbon dioxide.

The startup, Reverion, has already deployed its fuel cells on a handful of farms in Germany, where the cargo container-sized system uses biogas, a mixture of methane and CO₂ derived from crop residues or manure, to generate electricity. 

The funding from Frontier will allow the company to add equipment to capture the CO₂ emitted by the waste and the electricity-generation process. The gas will then be liquified and transported by road to a carbon storage hub.

‘One of the cheapest options’

Frontier’s investment will fund removal of 96,000 tons of CO₂ between 2027 and 2030. 

The implied cost of the removals — $427 per ton of CO₂ — is high by the standards of the voluntary carbon market, but consistent with Frontier’s mission to accelerate the development of carbon removal technology by funding early-stage projects. Frontier also requires portfolio companies to show a plausible path to selling removals at less than $100 per ton as their technologies scale.

“This is going to be one of the cheapest carbon removal options, because it is taking a pure stream of CO₂ that would be there anyway,” said Hannah Bebbington Valori, Frontier’s head of deployment.

Reverion has a good chance of scaling its removals work because of demand from farmers for the electricity-generating part of the process, added Bebbington Valori: “The fact that this is a highly efficient electricity generating system that is driving revenue for farmers is a critical part of what we think is going to be Reverion’s success.”

Frontier’s progress since 2022

Bolting carbon removal technologies onto existing industrial processes is an increasingly popular strategy for a sector where capital expenditure costs are often high. Earlier this year, for example, Frontier backed two projects that capture CO₂ emitted from wastewater and pulp-processing plants.

Frontier launched in 2022 with a commitment to buy an initial $1 billion of permanent carbon removal by 2030. It has since spent $670 million to fund 1.8 million tons of carbon removal. 

The Reverion deal is also being backed by Shopify, H&M Group and others. Several additional companies, including Canva, Wise, and Zendesk, participated via a partnership between Frontier and Watershed, a leading provider of carbon accounting software.