Air Canada has announced an equity investment/loan of $6.75 million into Canadian climate solutions company Carbon Engineering (CE). The investment supports the advancement of CE’s Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology that pulls carbon dioxide (CO2) directly out of the air at large, industrial scale.

Under its Climate Action Plan, Air Canada has committed to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. To help achieve this goal, the company created a $50-million investment fund to support new technologies. The $6.75 million being invested in CE comes from this fund and follows on an earlier announcement by Air Canada that it is investing US$5 million in Heart Aerospace, a Swedish company developing electric hybrid aircraft.

“We remain focused on seeking innovative, long-term, sustainable GHG emissions reduction solutions for aviation, and carbon capture is one we have outlined in our strategy to achieving net-zero GHG emissions by 2050,” said Air Canada President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Rousseau. “Last year, we became the first Canadian airline to sign an MOU with CE to explore carbon capture scalability and other initiatives for our industry. We are proud to invest in CE to further advance new, transformational technologies towards carbon removal commercially.”

According to CE, their DAC process uses large fans to pull in air and then, through a series of processes, extracts the CO2 while returning the other air components to the environment. The captured atmospheric CO2 can be used to reduce aviation emissions by producing sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) that can be drop-in compatible with today’s aircraft. The captured CO2 can also be safely and durably stored in geologic reservoirs to provide carbon dioxide removals that can used to offset GHG emissions.