Source: MLTC
What happened: Microsoft signed a 15-year carbon removal offtake with Svante and the Meadow Lake Tribal Council (MLTC) for 626,000 tonnes from North Star - Canada's first majority Indigenous-owned BECCS project.
The tech: North Star will add carbon capture to an existing biomass power plant that uses waste from an adjacent MLTC-owned sawmill. The captured CO₂ will be transported and permanently stored underground - a fully integrated source-to-sink system.
Because the biomass absorbs CO2 during growth, capturing and storing those emissions produces net removal, not just avoidance. At capacity, the plant will deliver 90,000 tonnes of CDR credits per year.
Why it matters: BECCS is one of the most mature CDR pathways, but has struggled to deliver at commercial scale. Feedstock access, expensive CO2 infrastructure, and weak commercial incentives have stalled projects.
North Star has built structural advantages to offset these risks: feedstocks are on-site, the facility is already running, and co-products like heat and power offset costs.
Microsoft's 15-year commitment solves the third, giving Svante and MLTC a bankable revenue stream to finance construction.
Not so simple:
No final investment decision yet - commercial operations are three years out
BECCS margins are notoriously tight
Microsoft is the dominant CDR buyer - project developers need to diversify
What's next: North Star is shaping up as a reference project for commercially viable BECCS and Indigenous-owned carbon removal. With the offtake signed, Svante will fund development through to FID and is targeting commercial operations in early 2029.