Frontier buys $31 million worth of ocean

Founded by Google, Stripe, Shopify and others, the Carbon Removal Clearing House announced today that it will purchase 115,211 tons of carbon removal credits from Geoengineering Startup Planetary worth $31.3 million.

If most frontier trades up to now have purchased carbon from a startup specializing in direct air capture, enhanced weathering, or bioenergy with carbon capture, the agreement with the planet is to do so first by increasing the alkalinity of the ocean.

The deal effectively price each metric tonne of carbon at $270, but the planetary says it plans to eventually remove carbon at less than $100 per metric tonne. At full slopes, strengthening ocean alkalinity can remove more than 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year.

For decades, the ocean has attenuated the effects of climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It slowed the pace of global warming, but it also puts many marine organisms at risk, including corals and shellfish that rely on alkaline waters to help build and maintain calcareous shells and skeletons.

The oceans of the world are naturally a little alkaline. Historically, they had a pH of 8.2, but have fallen to 8.1 since the Industrial Revolution began. That may not sound much, but the logarithmic scale of pH means that the ocean is 30% more acidic than in the early 1800s. When carbon dioxide reacts with water, it forms carbonic acid.

The planet is currently using magnesium hydroxide to increase its alkalinity, the same material used in commercial antacids. The company is adding it to wastewater treatment plants and power plants, where water is already draining into the ocean. This helps minimize shore disruption and helps the planet keep costs down.

Currently, the startup has two projects. One is in Nova Scotia and the other in Virginia.

Fix: Frontier revised the transaction size figures after the article was published. They were originally $31.2 million and 115,208 metric tons.