Exclusive: Carbon removal gets farm-friendly boost
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The CO2 removal startup Eion just landed $33 million of purchase agreements brokered via Frontier, the group of corporate giants trying to jumpstart the young industry.
The big picture: It's among the startups pursuing "enhanced rock weathering" — that is, using minerals in ways that speed up their natural CO2 absorption.
- Eion uses a mineral called olivine to replace lime in farm fields to manage soil pH balance.
Why it matters: Frontier is jazzed about Eion's tech in part because it integrates into a giant, incumbent industry.
- Eion's olivine is much cheaper than lime for farmers because capital from corporate removal buyers allows a lower sales cost.
"One thing that's really awesome about Eion's approach is that they're working with large farmer networks and have deep partnerships in the agricultural industry that is helping with distribution," Hannah Bebbington, Frontier's head of deployment, said in an interview.
Driving the news: Under today's deals, Frontier buyers will together finance 78,707 tons of CO2 removal between 2027 and 2030.
- The agreement marks a major expansion for Eion. Its existing offtake deals amount to $10 million spread across 10 buyers, including an 8,000-ton deal with Microsoft.
Catch up quick: Eion was founded in 2021 and has raised $20 million to date.
- It sources olivine from a hydro-powered Norwegian quarry, and the marine shipping is included in their emissions calculations.
- The company began commercial olivine applications in 2023 after R&D and trials and has partnerships with agricultural distributors including Growmark and Southern Ag.
- The number of farms Eion works with is expected to rise to the "high hundreds" with the new agreement, CEO Anastasia Pavlovic said.
What they're saying: Dan Prevost, a Mississippi farmer who has used olivine for multiple growing seasons, said working with existing ag product distributors is key.
- "It's really super-seamless whenever the partner just has another product in their toolbox, so to speak, that they can just plug and play...that's how you get to scale rapidly," said Prevost, who grows cotton, soybeans and more and praised olivine's performance.
The intrigue: Frontier carefully vets removal startups, and its work with the industry goes beyond purchase deals.
- The agreement with Eion includes new soil sampling research, which is helped along by olivine's relatively fast CO2 uptake when spread on fields.
- That direct sampling can help the industry collect crucial info that enables better modeling of enhanced weathering techniques.
What's next: "These early deployments are critical for building the datasets required to get really excellent models that can help us predict how much carbon removal is going to happen when we deploy rock over time, which will inevitably bring down the price," Bebbington said.
