Occidental, the oil giant who tried Fashion itself as climate technology leaderIt is now clear about capturing carbon dioxide emissions, which you consider the big thing to produce fossil fuels.
This should not be surprising from the petroleum company. But Occidental has built a full arm of his works allegedly fighting climate change. He – she It captured carbon engineering startupA pioneer in developing technologies that filter the carbon dioxide from the air, again in 2023. belonging to the 1pointfive sub -OCCIDENTAL, building giant facilities in Texas using carbon engineering technology. These projects have received support from the Biden administration and major companies, including Amazon and Microsoft, with their climatic goals that must be met. Carbon dioxide sucking from air is supposed to get rid of contamination that causes climate change.
But this strategy, called DAC, does not get the root of the problem: extracting the burning fossil fuel is the result of this pollution that runs the planet in the first place. What happens to this carbon once captured is a more hair question. DAC is sold as a climate, because the carbon captured under the ground can be isolated, which prevents greenhouse gases from building in the air and raising the average global temperatures.
“We believe that the next round of technology that will add large barrels – from 50 to 70 billion barrels of reserves – will be a production that comes from the use of carbon dioxide to recover the improvement.”
But fossil fuel companies used carbon dioxide historically in a process It is called the optimum oil recoveryShoot carbon in the exhausted oil fields to force the hard -to -reach reserves. in Profit call This week, Occidental described its DAC business as the company’s ability to produce more oil.
“We believe that the next round of technology that will add important barrels – from 50 to 70 billion barrels of reserves – will be the production that comes from the use of carbon dioxide in the recovery of improvement,” Oxidental, President and CEO Vicky Holoub said. This was in response to a question about how the company thought about its work to restore carbon with a change in management this year-from a procedure that determines the priority about climate change in the shadow of Joe Biden to one aimed at “drilling, child, drilling” under Donald Trump.
Hollub was mainly distinguished by using bracted carbon to restore improved oil as the largest grace of fossil fuel since the fracture enabled Oily rock revolution. Holoub said: “The removal of carbon dioxide from the air is a technique that needs to work in the United States, and President Trump knows the issue of work for this,” adding that it had held “several talks” with Trump.
Occidental has seen a slight decline in its enhanced oil production over the past few years, but the company’s leadership believes that it could prevent carbon dioxide. “There is not enough organic carbon dioxide in the country to be able to dump all things that we will need to flood to get this from 50 to 70 billion barrels,” according to Hallub.
Direct air capture is still expensive, however, the cost of hundreds of dollars per ton of the captured carbon dioxide. Its future in the United States can depend on whether the Trump administration retains tax ophthalmology in the Biden -Technology era, which Holoub mentioned in the call. After all, the company does not want to risk its ways. The first large DAC factory, called Stratos, is scheduled to come online this year in Texas, and has plans for the largest biggest Project at King Ranch It was Federal financing in 2023.
Microsoft concluded a deal With 1pointfive last year for 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide removal. and Amazon He agreed to pay 250,000 metric tons of carbon removal from the first DAC factory from 1pointfive. Each of these two agreement includes, at least, conditions that the captured carbon is permanently isolated without using it to produce more oil and gas.
But there is another disturbing result with these types of deals. The Dac Occidental factories that succeed in isolating carbon dioxide must succeed. Other companies that buy the budget for carbon evacuation services that they represent in carbon accounting to achieve their climatic goals. The time and money that could have been spent in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by other means-for example, by switching to cleaner energy sources-can be dispelled on carbon removal techniques that may not become commercially viable.
Occidental will continue to have fossil fuel to retreat, even if Dac fails. Currently, it can benefit from its oil and gas business, and benefit from cleaning some carbon dioxide pollution that creates it, then using the pollution it picks up to produce more fossil fuels.
