The world鈥檚 largest facility for removing carbon dioxide from the air is set to open in Texas in 2025, increasing the sector鈥檚 worldwide capacity by a factor of 13.
Currently the largest direct air capture (DAC) plant in the world is in Iceland 鈥� the Mammoth site, built and operated by Swiss firm Climeworks. It opened in May 2024 and can extract up to 36,000 tonnes of CO2 each year from Earth鈥檚 atmosphere.
Stratos, due to start operating in the middle of next year, will dwarf that. The facility will be able to remove up to 500,000 tonnes of CO2 per year when fully up and running, according to 1PointFive, an oil and gas company subsidiary that is building the complex.
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Its opening will also shift industry attention from Europe to North America. A host of larger-scale projects are planned or under construction across that continent, fuelled by generous tax credits offered by the US government under the Inflation Reduction Act. That includes four DAC hubs backed by $3.5 billion of funding from the US Department of Energy. The aim is to create a market for carbon capture technology, which is expensive but seen as vital for offsetting hard-to-decarbonise sectors, such as aviation, as we strive for a net-zero world.
Stratos will act as the first clear indication that DAC technology is commercially viable, says at Teesside University, UK. 鈥淎t the end of the day, there must be a business model behind it for DAC operators,鈥� he says.
The CO2 captured at the Texas plant is likely to be stored underground, while the sale of carbon offset credits to large corporates will generate revenue. Microsoft, Amazon and TD Bank are among the firms signed up to buy these credits.
The price they are paying for this will be critical. 1PointFive says it expects carbon removal at Stratos to cost $400 to $500 per tonne, well above the $100 to $200 target developers hope to achieve for DAC by the end of the decade. Only a few large companies have pockets deep enough to pay for carbon removal at this rate and on this scale.
To drive costs down, further innovation is needed. The critical challenge for 2025 is for DAC to scale up without driving out the smaller players in the industry, as they tend to bring the kind of innovation we need, says Hanak. Such firms are developing novel DAC methods like electrochemical direct air capture, he says, a more energy efficient way of removing carbon from the atmosphere that uses electricity instead of heat and pressure. Hanak hopes these outfits will thrive: 鈥淭he Stratos project could give investors the confidence to invest in smaller projects.鈥�
But DAC isn鈥檛 without controversy. Occidental Petroleum, which owns 1PointFive, has made no secret of its desire to use captured CO2 in enhanced oil recovery, where it is injected into reservoirs to help push out any remaining oil.
Occidental Petroleum describes oil produced through this process as 鈥渘et zero oil鈥� and says this approach will allow DAC to scale up fast, but many climate campaigners argue it will just prolong the use of fossil fuels and slow the global transition to green energy. 鈥淭he ultimate use of captured CO2 from Stratos will be driven by customer preference,鈥� Occidental Petroleum said in a statement.
