The United States Will Build The World's Largest Carbon Dioxide Removal Plant

A new joint venture backed by OCcidental Petroleum, the US oil and gas producer, will develop the largest plant ever to pump carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through the Direct Air capture process, according to Hydrocarbon Processing Online on August 19.

Oxy Low Carbon Ventures LLC, the venture capital arm of Occnopec, has formed a company with private equity firm Rusheen Capital Management, which focuses on sustainable development, to acquire direct air capture (DAC) technology developed by Carbon Engineering Canada.

Interest in DAC has grown in recent years, from companies seeking to offset their climate impacts to government officials worried about the slow pace of progress on international agreements to reduce emissions.

However, carbon removal technologies like DAC are expensive, and they are not yet available on a large scale.

The new company, 1PointFive, will develop a 100-acre plant in the Permian Basin in Texas. The goal is to capture up to 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, the company said in a joint statement.

Construction of the plant will begin in 2022 to allow time to improve the plant design and reduce costs. The project will seek financing in the market.

The carbon dioxide captured by the Texas plant will be stored underground to increase pressure on the field and speed up production.

The project will benefit from a federal tax credit designed to spur investment in carbon capture and sequestration.

Carbon Engineering has a pilot plant in British Columbia that USES the technology and has been operating since 2015.