Bill Gates-backed fund gives carbon removal firm $40 million
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Deep Sky, a Quebec-based developer of carbon removal projects, has landed a $40 million grant commitment from the Bill Gates-backed fund Breakthrough Energy Catalyst.
Why it matters: The investment signals the $1 billion-plus Breakthrough Energy Catalyst fund's interest in demonstration projects in the carbon removal sector.
Zoom in: The fund is aimed at filling financing gaps for clean tech projects and made its first investment in a sustainable aviation fuel project in West Texas.
- Deep Sky plans to use the money to construct what it is now calling Deep Sky Alpha (previously known as Deep Sky Labs) in Alberta, with its research, development, testing and deployment of new direct air capture technologies.
- According to a Deep Sky news release, this is Catalyst's first investment in Canada as well as first commitment to a direct air capture project.
The intrigue: Deep Sky is seeking to lower the cost of direct air capture technology, since it currently remains too expensive to be used at scale for reducing the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere.
- In its most recent reports, the UN's top climate science panel found that direct air capture and other technologies to bring CO2 levels down once emissions reach net zero would likely be needed in large quantities.
- The financing for Deep Sky is in the form of a grant to help the company navigate the steeper costs of shepherding early-stage and risky technologies.
Deep Sky Alpha will be capable of testing multiple DAC technologies simultaneously.
- It's scheduled to deliver its first carbon removal credits by the spring of next year, and Damien Steel, Deep Sky's CEO, said the company is "unapologetically ambitious."
- "The partnership with Breakthrough Energy Catalyst and their expertise into what it takes to build projects at scale has already been transformative to Deep Sky," Steel said in a statement.
Zoom out: The Deep Sky investment comes as other funds affiliated with Gates, along with other climate tech investors, have invested in direct air capture technologies.
- All of this has occurred as global emissions of greenhouse gases have climbed ever higher.
- Despite the excitement and flurry of activity in the sector, very few operational air capture facilities operate globally, and their costs are far higher than would be needed for the tech to go mainstream.
Go deeper: How carbon removal might scale up, and what could go wrong
