The Biden administration is throwing its weight behind technology that sucks planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the air, selecting the first winners of a $3.5 billion fund dedicated to developing the machines scientists say will be needed to stop the worst effects of climate change.
The Biden administration is throwing its weight behind technology that sucks planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the air, selecting the first winners of a $3.5 billion fund dedicated to developing the machines scientists say will be needed to stop the worst effects of climate change.
Projects proposed by a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp. for Kleberg County, Texas, and by Climeworks AG, Battelle Memorial Institute and Heirloom Carbon Technologies, Inc. for Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, were selected for the first tranche of funding, up to $1.2 billion, the Energy Department said.
The technology is „essentially a giant vacuum that can suck decades of old carbon pollution straight out of the sky,“ Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters. „If we deploy this at scale, this technology can help us make serious headway toward our net-zero emission goals.“
Once operational, the hubs are expected to remove more than 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year from the atmosphere, the equivalent of taking nearly half a million gas-powered cars off the road, Granholm said.
