Frontier, a coalition focused on carbon removal, has announced a $41 million offtake agreement with bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) company Arbor. This agreement aims to remove 116,000 tonnes of CO2 between 2028 and 2030 for companies including Google, Shopify, and H&M Group.
The agreement will facilitate the development of Arbor’s first commercial-scale plant near Lake Charles, Louisiana, which is expected to be fully operational by 2028. The plant will test a new, highly efficient BECCS method for generating clean electricity and removing CO2. Arbor, established in 2022 by former SpaceX engineers, uses advancements in oxy-combustion and supercritical turbomachinery to convert waste biomass into syngas. This gas is then processed in an oxycombustor, burning it with pure oxygen to produce supercritical CO2 and water. The CO2 drives a turbine to generate clean electricity.
Arbor claims its technology generates 1,000 kWh of clean electricity per ton of CO2 removed, improving biomass-to-electricity conversion efficiency by over 30% and achieving a carbon capture rate exceeding 99%. This efficiency helps reduce costs while meeting the demand for clean electricity, particularly for data centres.
Hannah Bebbington, Head of Deployment at Frontier, stated, “We need to remove gigatonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere and we need a lot more clean electricity to meet the pace of AI’s development. Though they are two separate challenges, Arbor tackles both with a single solution.”
Arbor’s process also produces excess water, which the company plans to sell for applications such as data centre cooling and irrigation in future projects.
Frontier, launched in April 2022, is an advance market commitment to purchase permanent carbon removal, designed to accelerate the development of carbon removal technologies by ensuring future demand. The coalition evaluates suppliers to identify those with solutions capable of achieving high-volume carbon removals at low cost.
Participants in the $41 million agreement include Stripe, Google, Shopify, McKinsey Sustainability, Autodesk, H&M Group, and Workday. Additionally, through Frontier’s partnership with Watershed, companies such as Aledade, Canva, Match Group, Samsara, SKIMS, Skyscanner, Wise, and Zendesk are also involved.
This transaction is the latest in Frontier’s series of carbon removal agreements, which have included partnerships with entities like [Hafslund Celsio](https://www.esgtoday.com/frontier-signs-deal-to-remove-100000-tonnes-of-carbon-from-garbage-incineration/), [Eion](https://www.esgtoday.com/frontier-signs-33-million-carbon-removal-purchase-with-enhanced-rock-weathering-startup-eion/), CO280, and CREW Carbon.
Brad Hartwig, CEO of Arbor, commented, “Carbon removal approaches that deliver both net removal and decarbonisation benefits will scale quickly. This offtake agreement with Frontier buyers accelerates a model that removes carbon while generating the reliable, zero-emission energy our power grid needs.”
