Occidental Makes a Billion-Dollar Climate Moonshot

Please note that thanks to Biden's Inflation Reduction Act subsidies, Occidental Makes a Billion-Dollar Climate Moonshot—So It Can Keep Pumping Oil

About fifty miles southwest of Midland, Texas, deep in the oil-saturated Permian Basin, more than 100 workers are busy laying out roads and water lines, preparing to build an elaborate complex of fans, each as large as a tennis court.

When they start running in 2024, the fans will suck massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air. The carbon will be funneled thousands of feet down deep wells into geological formations, where it should remain for centuries. 

Removing CO2 from the atmosphere at this scale has never been done before, and the enterprise comes with abundant commercial and scientific uncertainties. 

The plant's fans will pull up to 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air a year—about as much as 111,000 American cars spew out in a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Houston-based company said it wants to build up to 135 such plants by 2035, depending on public incentives and demand for carbon credits.