Oil giant Occidental announced an enormous escalation of its plans to take planet-heating carbon dioxide out of the air. It signed a lease agreement on 106,000 acres in Kleberg County, Texas, where it would build up to 30 new facilities capable of drawing CO2 out of the ambient air. The land sits within the historic King Ranch in South Texas, where up to 3 billion metric tons of CO2 could be stored underground in geologic reservoirs.
Despite being one of the biggest oil producers in the country, Occidental is trying to position itself as a leader when it comes to deploying new climate tech. The Direct Air Capture (DAC) plants Occidental envisions for its new digs in King Ranch would filter CO2 out of the air to keep it from building up…
