Frontier, the Advance Market Commitment (AMC) founded by Stripe, Google, Shopify, Meta, McKinsey and tens of thousands of companies using Stripe Climate, which aims to accelerate the development of carbon removal technologies by guaranteeing future demand, has announced that it has allocated over $1 billion for the permanent removal of CO2 from the atmosphere (carbon removal) by 2030.
As part of this initiative, Frontier has signed a $500,000 agreement for the advance purchase of carbon removal with Limenet, a start-up that has developed an innovative technology for the production of green lime, i.e. zero-emission lime, which can be used to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in the sea through a natural chemical process with potential benefits for the marine ecosystem.
Frontier’s goal is to send a strong signal to researchers, entrepreneurs and investors that there is a growing market for these technologies. That is why its selection process is highly selective. Frontier works with external scientific experts to evaluate companies according to rigorous criteria, including durability, i.e. the ability to guarantee that CO₂ will remain stored for at least a thousand years, the likelihood of achieving low costs, scalability, environmental safety, community involvement and execution capacity.
Limenet is the first Italian company to join Frontier’s portfolio, the sixth in Europe to secure an advance purchase agreement, and the second European ocean-based start-up selected by Frontier. Limenet will sell 330 tonnes of carbon removal, worth $500,000.
This amount of CO₂ is equivalent to the emissions generated by 150 return flights between Rome and New York. Frauke Kracke, science lead at Frontier (pictured), said in a statement that Frontier’s decision was driven by the fact that: “Limenet is developing an innovative electric calcination furnace to produce green lime, which could represent a fundamental breakthrough in scaling up various CDR (carbon dioxide removal) approaches, including ocean alkalisation. The Limenet team has demonstrated excellent execution in bringing this project to fruition, and we are excited about the potential of this technology to decarbonise a strategic supply chain for the carbon removal industry.”
“We are extremely proud to see our commitment recognised by such an important player in our sector,” says Stefano Cappello, CEO of Limenet. “This milestone represents a fundamental step for our company and a strong positive response to our approach in the global CO2 removal (CDR) sector. Starting to collaborate with a leader like Frontier, whose vision and ongoing commitment to implementing climate action inspires us, motivates us to continue pursuing our path and achieving increasingly significant results.
Frontier’s selection follows Limenet’s major scientific achievement. In early June, the first positive results of scientific studies confirming the safety of the company’s CO₂ storage technology in the sea and its compatibility with the protection of marine ecosystems were released. The first of the two studies was conducted in 2024 in La Spezia in collaboration with the University of Milan-Bicocca. The results of this initial experiment show that treatments such as those developed by Limenet, based on pH-balanced solutions, can help make phytoplankton communities more stable and resilient, especially in port environments, by supporting carbon sequestration and counteracting acidification (sources: Groppelli et al. The response of phytoplankton to pH-equilibrated Ocean Alkalinization: a mesocosm experiment with harbour waters, Marine Pollution Bulletin). The second was conducted on water produced by the Augusta plant with the support of the Institute for Biological Resources and Biotechnology (IRBIM) of the CNR in Messina, confirming the company’s concrete commitment to protecting marine environments. This second experiment began with testing various water samples after treatment with the technology developed by Limenet to assess their potential toxicity to different marine species. Although the data are preliminary, they show that the water treated and released by the Limenet process does not cause any negative effects on any of the indicator organisms belonging to the different evolutionary levels under study, at the concentrations analysed.
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