Montréal-based cleantech company Deep Sky has delivered the first-ever certified carbon credits using direct air capture (DAC) technology in North America.
The news: Deep Sky announced on Monday morning that carbon captured and removed from the atmosphere by its facility in Innisfail, Alta., has been independently reviewed and registered as the first certified carbon removal credits generated through DAC in North America.
The credits mark the beginning of Deep Sky’s relationship with Microsoft and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), which have both purchased carbon credits from Deep Sky worth about 10,000 tonnes of stored CO2 over 10 years; or roughly how much emissions are generated to power nearly 1,500 homes for a year.
From the source: “This is exactly the kind of action our climate strategy is designed to advance: climate solutions that are scientifically measurable with the potential to scale,” RBC director of environmental markets Brian Hong said in a statement. “Deep Sky has moved with remarkable speed to bring this project to life, and the fact that it’s happening in Alberta—a region central to Canada’s energy future—makes it even more meaningful.”
Following the thread: Carbon credits are a way for firms to offset the impact of their environmental footprint by paying for projects that help lower emissions or remove carbon from the atmosphere, though the practice has been panned as greenwashing by some critics. These have traditionally been generated through renewable energy or reforestation projects, but Deep Sky uses fans to pull in air, separate out the CO2, and sequester it underground.
Isometric, a carbon dioxide removal registry, independently verified Deep Sky’s carbon credits under its DAC protocol, which requires the project’s emissions to be accounted for when calculating net carbon removal.
Final thought: Deep Sky is the first North American example of certified DAC carbon credits, but Climeworks’ Orca facility in Iceland was the first in the world. There are more DAC facilities spinning up in North America, including Occidental’s facility in Texas, Heirloom’s facility in California, and another Deep Sky facility in Manitoba.
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Feature image courtesy Deep Sky.