A carbon-removal company backed by Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, the climate investment initiative founded by Bill Gates, has launched a solar-powered facility in Alberta, Canada, to test and evaluate multiple direct air capture (DAC) technologies under real-world conditions. Known as Deep Sky Alpha, the facility is located in Innisfail, Alberta, and has been designed as a testing site for multiple direct air capture technologies. The objective is to compare factors such as energy consumption, carbon-capture efficiency, operational reliability and scalability using directly comparable data. The facility is powered through a renewable energy agreement centred on solar generation. Initial plans call for the removal of approximately 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, with captured carbon intended for permanent geological storage underground. The project arrives as carbon-removal technologies receive growing attention from policymakers, investors and researchers, with some experts seeing DAC as a potentially useful tool while others question its scalability and cost.