To try to counteract the impact their pollution has on the climate, Google and other big companies have bought into a plan to trap carbon dioxide using rocks. They recently announced multimillion dollar deals with a Sheryl Sandberg-backed startup called Terradot. Google, H&M Group, and Salesforce are among a gaggle of companies that collectively agreed to pay Terradot $27 million to remove 90,000 tons carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Groundwater carrying that bicarbonate eventually makes its way to the ocean, which stores the carbon and keeps it out of the atmosphere. Accelerating the process, in theory, is simple: crush up rock and spread it out over a large area, increasing the surface area of exposed rock that reacts with CO2. Terradot has a 2029 deadline to make good on the 90,000-ton Frontier deal. It’s supposed to capture the additional 200,000 tons for Google by the early 2030s.