Startup 280 Earth has landed the first commercial deal to capture carbon dioxide from the air in The Dalles and sequester it away in an effort to slow climate change.

A coalition of tech companies said Thursday it will pay $40 million for 280 Earth to remove more than 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through 2030. The money will help pay for 280 Earth to build additional carbon capture modules in The Dalles.

Removing 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the air is roughly equivalent to eliminating the annual carbon emissions of 13,000 cars.

Based in Silicon Valley, 280 Earth originated in Google’s incubator for “moonshot” technologies. It’s one of several companies experimenting with technologies to fight climate change by actively removing carbon dioxide from the air.

A 280 Earth test facility opened this past spring in The Dalles, adjacent to Google’s data centers there. The startup says it has developed a special, absorbent material that can absorb carbon from the atmosphere at relatively low temperatures – potentially making it more efficient than alternatives.

A tech consortium known as Frontier said Thursday it will be 280 Earth’s first customer in The Dalles. Frontier says it plans to spend more than $1 billion on carbon removal by 2030. Its members include Strike, Shopify, Google parent company Alphabet and Facebook parent company Meta.

-- Mike Rogoway covers Oregon technology and the state economy. Reach him at mrogoway@oregonian.com.

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