Deep Sky is the world’s first IP-agnostic carbon removal project developer, helping to reverse climate change. Deep Sky aims to remove billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere and ocean and permanently store it underground, back where it belongs.
As a project developer, Deep Sky brings together the most promising direct air and ocean carbon capture companies under one roof to bring the largest supply of high quality carbon credits to the market. They are commercializing carbon removal and storage solutions like never before.

How did Deep Sky come to be?

Deep Sky is founded by the two co-founders of the travel company, Hopper – Fred Lalonde and Joost Ouwerkerk – as well as former Airbnb and The Blackstone Group CFO, Laurence Tosi. Since Hopper is in the travel industry, co-founder Fred Lalonde began learning more about how to offset emissions from the travel industry. He realized that cutting emissions will never be enough – instead, we need to remove every single ton of carbon dioxide that we’ve created.

From there, Hopper Trees was created, a program to plant two trees for every booking on Hopper. The Hopper Trees program is still active, and has already planted 25M trees. Reforestation projects remain an important pathway to offset carbon emissions, but engineered carbon removal helps make a large-scale impact, quickly. As he learned more, Fred realized the true emergency that climate change poses, and started Deep Sky with Joost Ouwerkerk and Laurence Tosi to have a deeper impact.

Deep Sky One aims to be the nexus for CO2 removal at scale. How does the project incorporate all the different aspects of the Carbon Removal Value Chain?

Deep Sky One will be our first commercial facility – where we’ll take the best tech and learnings from Deep Sky Labs and scale it by building commercial plants across Canada. This operation will incorporate all aspects of the carbon removal value chain – capture (from air and ocean), transport, geological storage, and ultimately, the sale of high value carbon credits through proprietary software that will track CO2 for credit generation.

What specific natural resources in Canada does Deep Sky leverage to facilitate CO2 removal and why are they considered ideal?

Canada is a prime location for carbon removal technology due to its renewable hydroelectric energy, immense wind power potential and rich geological makeup. A natural resource giant, Canada has the world’s fourth largest land area and the world’s largest territorial waters.
When it comes to underground carbon storage, we’re building geological storage sites in ultramafic rock and saline aquifers where carbon can be safely stored for thousands of years. Saline aquifers involve injecting CO2 miles underground in sedimentary reservoirs. In ultramafic rock, carbon mineralization is the process by which carbon dioxide combines with rock elements to precipitate as a solid mineral, such as a carbonates. It is a chemical reaction that happens when certain rocks, like mafic or ultramafic, are exposed to carbon dioxide.

Canada’s rich geology has several suitable formations for carbon sequestration via mineralization, including basaltic sequences and several abducted ultramafic slabs containing peridotites and serpentinites, all of these able to release the cations necessary to trigger the carbon mineralization reaction.

Deep Sky values partnerships with start-ups, government entities, and local communities. How do these partnerships secure renewable energy and ensure responsible stewardship of the natural environment?

Deep Sky is fortunate to have broad support in the private and public sectors, as well as at the local level. We’re committed to building long-term relationships with the communities in which we hope to operate. Securing renewable energy is a key aspect of our model in order for us to deliver high quality carbon credits. We’re working closely with energy providers to ensure that we’re strategically maximizing the efficiency of the grid and acting as a responsible steward of power.

The project highlights both direct air capture and ocean capture. What are the advantages of these approaches, and how do they contribute to the overall carbon removal strategy?

There’s no net zero without carbon removals. That’s because the amount of CO2 that has accumulated in our atmosphere is so dense, that the only way to slow global warming is to physically take CO2 out. So, in addition to widespread emissions reductions, we also have to actively remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to fully address the climate challenge.

We need to remove from both the air and ocean because of Henry’s Law - a natural ocean/air exchange of carbon. If we removed CO2 from only the air, a high saturation of CO2 in the ocean would outgas back into the atmosphere. So, we have to remove it from both at same time in equal amounts to maintain equilibrium.

Storage of CO2 is also an important component to the project. How does Deep Sky One ensure the safe sequestration of captured carbon underground?

The safety and protection of the environment and the communities in which we operate is our priority. That's why we implement a known and tested solution on a large scale. We’ve been doing some form of CO2 injection into the ground since the 1960's, so this isn't a new process. However, our company aims to implement it at a large scale across Canada to fight climate change.

There are a number of ways to safely sequester CO2: saline aquifers, in-situ mineralization and ex-situ mineralization.
• Deep saline aquifer storage is the process where CO2 will be in liquid form when stored underground. The natural geology and weight of the ground keeps the CO2 in a stable and safe position.
• In-situ mineralization is the process where CO2 is injected into underground CO2-reactive rocks, thereby converting CO2 into stone.
• Ex-situ mineralization occurs in high-pressure and/or high-temperature reactors where alkaline rocks react with concentrated CO2.

This carbon mineralization process naturally occurs over hundreds or thousands of years.
But in-situ carbon mineralization has been proven to permanently sequester CO2 as calcite rock in less than 2 years, with no harmful byproducts, and with no chance of returning to the atmosphere.

What environmental benefits are expected from the implementation of Deep Sky One's carbon removal projects?

Deep Sky One will contribute to the overall reduction of CO2 in our atmosphere, reducing harmful global warming which directly threatens humanity. A reduction in CO2 offers other benefits, such as improved air quality, a decrease in adverse health effects from air pollution, and reduces the risks of extreme weather events, sea level rise, and disruptions to ecosystems.

What steps are being taken to commercialize these solutions and make them accessible on a broader scale?

Deep Sky’s business model is specifically designed to scale Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), bring costs down, and maximize energy efficiency. First, we’re building the world’s first carbon removal innovation center, called Deep Sky Labs. Labs will make it possible for many different direct air capture (DAC) and direct ocean capture (DOC) concepts to be tested simultaneously. It serves as an opportunity for all of us to learn alongside each other, share learnings with the broader CDR industry, and work towards commercialization. To be clear, Deep Sky Labs isn’t a money maker for Deep Sky – instead, it’s purely an effort to advance the carbon removal industry as a whole.
In Phase two, we will build our first commercial facility – where we’ll take the best tech and learnings from Labs and scale it by building our first gigaton-level plant across Canada. Deep Sky is also developing software that will track, measure and benchmark each of the companies that join Deep Sky Labs against the best-in-class technology. With that information, the companies that participate will learn faster, evolve quicker and ultimately produce at scale faster.

Author: Brooks Wallace, VP, Communications & Marketing, Deep Sky
www.deepskyclimate.com

Article published in Issue 1, 2024 Carbon Capture Magazine

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