McKinsey & Google-backed coalition invests $41 million in Louisiana biomass carbon removal project

A coalition of major corporate players, including McKinsey and Google, has committed $41 million to purchase carbon removal credits from a biomass energy project in Louisiana in the US.

The initiative, led by startup Arbor, aims to produce reliable power while capturing and storing carbon dioxide at competitive costs.

Arbor, founded by a former SpaceX engineer, is developing a facility near Louisiana’s Gulf Coast expected to be operational by 2028.

The project employs bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technology, which converts forest thinnings into clean energy and sequesters the resultant CO₂ underground.

The Frontier coalition will acquire 116,000 carbon removal credits from the project, signalling growing confidence in BECCS solutions.

Microsoft, another active buyer in this sector, has already contracted nearly 10 million BECCS credits from various international projects this year.

Arbor’s approach introduces several advancements: biomass is gasified into a syngas mixture and combusted in pure oxygen, producing a high-purity CO₂ stream in a supercritical liquid state.

This method improves energy conversion efficiency by over 30% compared to conventional BECCS and reduces carbon capture costs due to cleaner exhaust gases.

While current costs exceed $350 per tonne of CO₂ removed, the coalition projects these could fall below $100 per tonne as the technology scales.

Arbor’s integrated capture and power generation design allows system scaling that greatly increases output without proportional cost rises.

Sustainability remains a core concern, as biomass sourcing has previously drawn criticism for impacting natural forests. Arbor’s project addresses this by using forest thinnings from commercial plantations - material typically left unused or burned - minimising ecological impact. The feedstock supply is rigorously monitored via third-party verification to prevent substitution with unsustainable sources, according to the organisation.