Canadian company Deep Sky has announced plans to build the world’s first carbon removal innovation and commercialization center in Innisfail, a town about an hour north of Calgary, Alberta.

The drive to net zero needs to be fought on many fronts. There’s the vanguard offensive: simply reducing the carbon footprint of the things we already do. Then there’s the field medicine: tactics like planting more trees and restoring peatlands – not to mention protecting the trees we already have. But what if we could add another line of attack?

Well, with this announcement from Deep Sky, we could soon do just that. They claim that the center will have the capacity to capture 3,000 tons of CO₂ per year. To be honest, that is not Really so much – enough to offset the annual carbon footprint of about 227 Canadians or 218 Americans – but the company is keen to stress that this is just the beginning.

“This project is a world first,” said Damien Steel, CEO of Deep Sky, in a statement on the company’s blog, “and serves as a testing ground from which the young industry can grow into Canada’s multi-trillion dollar company.”

The company plans for the facility to serve not only as a carbon capture center, but also as a place to develop new ideas and future technologies. “Labs will enable many different Direct Air Capture (DAC) concepts to be tested simultaneously,” the statement said. This technology should “solve the delivery delays that have plagued previous global carbon removal projects.”

Eight different DAC technologies are already in use at the center, which is expected to be operational before the end of next year. There is currently room for two more potential carbon capture technologies: “Labs is purpose-built to accommodate ten different DAC technologies,” the statement said, “with room to expand.”

The company’s mission also includes the goal of producing “highly integrated carbon credits” – a global system that recently came under criticism after studies found that over 90 percent of certain types of carbon credits are completely worthless. In fact, they may even exacerbate the problem of industrial carbon dioxide emissions.

One reason for this is the inability to prove – or even reasonably estimate – how effective emissions reduction methods actually are. “The big problem with these projects is setting the baseline. When you measure the impact of your project, what do you compare it to?” Gilles Dufrasne, head of global carbon markets at independent watchdog Carbon Market Watch, told Carbon Brief.

“You compare it to what would have happened without your project,” he explained. “That counterfactual assumption is quite difficult.”

However, Deep Sky has an advantage in this regard. “The carbon removal credits generated by Deep Sky projects are tracked end-to-end using digital measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) methods,” the statement said, “and validated against the most stringent carbon standards to ensure full additionality and sustainability.”

All this means that while the plant may be a small first step in terms of raw volume, it represents “a huge step forward for the health of our planet and our economy,” according to Steel.

“I cannot overstate the importance of the world’s first carbon removal innovation and commercialization centre and its significance for Canada and our planet as a whole,” he said.

“Because quality and speed were top priorities, we are proud that this facility was completed from concept to completion in less than a year.”