Fortune - USA (2020-04)

Plainview, Texas, lies between Lubbock and Amarillo,

on a highway whose speed limit is 75 miles per hour but

doesn’t seem to much matter. The town’s name fits: On

the early morning I visit, the pancake-flat landscape,

offset by a vast orange sky, affords what seems an endless

vista. Dominating the horizon on the eastern edge of town

are the seven 807,000-gallon fermentation tanks at an

ethanol plant owned by Frisco, Texas-based White Energy.

Ethanol, made in the U.S. primarily from corn, has

long been marketed as a clean fuel. But its production, a

process of fermentation that resembles—and smells like—

beermaking, produces gobs of CO 2. Soon

after sunrise, I circle the plant with Brian

Steenhard, White Energy’s chief executive.

As we linger at the ethanol tanks, he points

to a pipe atop one. It belches as much as

350,000 tons of CO 2 yearly. White Energy’s

Hereford plant, an hour away, emits about

the same amount.

White Energy and Oxy have applied to the

California Air Resources Board, known as

CARB, to receive credits for capping those

out of the atmosphere. Here’s how Carbon Engineering, a startup backed by Occidental and Chevron, carries out the process.

Some pellets

are hydrated

and recycled

back within the

system to

reproduce the

original capture

chemical.

The CO2 gas is

compressed so it can be

delivered in gas form

ready for use or storage.

The process, though

carbon-negative, is

energy-intensive and, for

These pellets now, expensive.

are then

heated in a

calciner, in

order to

release the

CO2 in pure

gas form.

GAS STATION Excess CO 2 from this ethanol plant in Plainview, Texas, could eventually be stored in Oxy oilfields.

CAR.W.04.20.XMIT.indd 65 FINAL 3/10/2020 8:24:20 PM