Business | A giant sucking sound

Can carbon removal become a trillion-dollar business?

Quite possibly—and not before time

Shovels during a groundbreaking ceremony at the Occidental Petroleum and 1PointFive Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant in Ector County, Texas, US, on Friday, April 28, 2023. Upon completion, the first DAC plant will be the world's largest of its kind and will allow the acceleration of a net-zero economy. Photographer: Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images — Image: Getty Images

May 21st 2023|Notrees

“TODAY WE SEE the birth of a new species,” declared Julio Friedmann, gazing across the bleak landscape. Along with several hundred grandees, the energy technologist had travelled to Notrees, a remote corner of the Texas oil patch, in late April. He was invited by 1PointFive, an arm of Occidental Petroleum, an American oil firm, and of Carbon Engineering, a Canadian startup backed by Bill Gates. The species in question is in some ways akin to a tree—but not the botanical sort, nowhere to be seen on the barren terrain. Rather, it is an arboreal artifice: the world’s first commercial-scale “direct air capture” (DAC) plant.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “A giant sucking sound”