The first North American project that filters carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it underground began operation Wednesday in Alberta, Canada.
The direct air capture installation, known as Alpha, is owned and operated by Deep Sky and will eventually be capable of permanently pulling up to 3,000 metric tons of CO2 a year from the sky. That’s about as much climate pollution as 700 gasoline-powered cars produce annually, according to EPA data.
While the removal capacity of the project is relatively modest — Iceland is already home to two direct air capture plants bigger than Alpha — its design is unique. The installation will test the technical and economic viability of 10 companies’ direct air capture technologies that Deep Sky has licensed and is considering deploying at larger-scale developments.
“While we have been delivering on Alpha, we’ve also been in parallel working on developing two commercial facilities,” Alex Petre, the CEO of Deep Sky, said in a video interview from the facility. “We will be down selecting specific technologies, which are more suitable for commercialization for our next projects.”
