Carbon removal buyer coalition Frontier has committed $41 million to climate tech startup Arbor Energy to scale a rocket-inspired biomass power plant that captures 99% of its carbon emissions. Frontier announced last week that the deal will support Arbor's first commercial facility in southern Louisiana and aims to remove 116,000 tons of carbon dioxide by 2030.
Frontier is backed by Stripe, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, GOOGL)), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), and Shopify (NYSE:SHOP).
Don't Miss:
- If You're Age 35, 50, or 60: Here’s How Much You Should Have Saved Vs. Invested By Now
- Named a TIME Best Invention and Backed by 5,000+ Users, Kara's Air-to-Water Pod Cuts Plastic and Costs — And You Can Invest At Just $6.37/Share
A Rocket Engineer's Climate Fix
Founded by former SpaceX engineer Brad Hartwig, Arbor developed a biomass power system that burns waste organic material to generate electricity, while capturing and sequestering nearly all resulting carbon emissions.
Hartwig previously described the plant as a "vegetarian rocket engine" due to its use of rocket-style turbomachinery and its carbon-free fuel source.
How It Works
According to TechCrunch, Arbor's process uses a proprietary gasifier to convert waste biomass into syngas—a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide—using supercritical CO2 from the plant itself. The syngas is then combusted with pure oxygen to produce water vapor, heat, and CO2.
The resulting high-temperature gases power a turbomachine to generate electricity. Most of the CO2 is captured and routed for permanent storage underground. A portion is cycled back to dissolve additional biomass in the gasifier.
Trending: This AI-Powered Trading Platform Has 5,000+ Users, 27 Pending Patents, and a $43.97M Valuation — You Can Become an Investor for Just $500.25
The first plant will produce 5–10 megawatts of electricity, TechCrunch reported.
Frontier said the system can capture up to 99% of emitted CO2, far outperforming traditional carbon capture methods.
Sustainable Biomass Use: A Key Priority
Frontier's head of deployment, Hannah Bebbington, emphasized that not all biomass is suitable for carbon removal. "We want to be careful that we're taking that into consideration," she told TechCrunch. "We require that every ton delivered also meets sustainable biomass principles in a very clear way."
Bebbington said that the biomass supply may range from one to five gigatons annually, but only a portion would meet sustainability criteria. Even if only one gigaton of biomass meets sustainability standards, she said, technologies like biomass carbon removal and storage, or BiCRS, and its close cousin, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS, have significant long-term potential.
See Also: $100k+ in investable assets? Match with a fiduciary advisor for free to learn how you can maximize your retirement and save on taxes – no cost, no obligation.
Looking Ahead
"We would like BECCS to be a major player for data centers, industrial electrification, grid resilience," Hartwig told TechCrunch. "But if any new fossil assets are built, we'd like those to all be zero emission as well."
The new deal builds on an earlier pre-purchase agreement between Frontier and Arbor. Hartwig said the system is designed to be fuel flexible and could theoretically burn any source of hydrocarbons, including natural gas.
However, under the terms of the Frontier agreement, the plant will only burn biomass to meet carbon removal goals, TechCrunch reported.
Read Next: Can you guess how many retire with a $5,000,000 nest egg? The percentage may shock you.
Image: Shutterstock
