Fortune - 04.2020

(Wang) #1
nally, for instance, CARB wanted Oxy to insert fiberoptic
“geophones” into each West Seminole CO 2 -injection well to
listen for signals that the injection might be prompting an
earthquake, Bill Raatz, Oxy’s chief geologist, tells me. Oxy
argued that was “a complete nonstarter” for cost reasons,
Raatz says, so Oxy asked CARB to let it put a geophone
down no more than a handful of the wells and use cheaper
aboveground seismic monitors elsewhere.
CARB officials say they won’t comment on their dis-
cussions with Oxy and may rule on the West Seminole
application later this spring. In March, CARB was review-
ing a 520-page document from Oxy that argues that the
field would safely sequester CO 2. When I asked to see it,
both Oxy and CARB refused to give it to me. Only after
Fortune submitted an open-records request to CARB did

pipes and sending the CO 2 to the West Semi-
nole field for burial. Steenhard estimates that
if regulators signed off, and if White Energy
figured out how to ship to California all the
ethanol it produced in Plainview and Here-
ford, the credits would generate between
$360 million and $720 million over 12 years.
The project could receive federal incentives
over that same span, potentially offsetting
some $275 million in taxes. CCS projects be-
ing hatched elsewhere would be far, far larger.
The obstacle: California has tougher
requirements than the feds for ensuring in-
jected CO 2 stays put. But those rules’ effects
on the ground still are taking shape. Origi-

An artificial tree designed by Klaus Lackner of ASU sucks CO 2 from air
that moves through the device.

66 FORTUNE APRIL 2020

SCI-FI TECH

TACK LE S

CLIMATE CHANGE

Researchers are working on some unlikely
remedies to counteract global warming,
such as “planting” artificial trees and grow-
ing algae in the ocean at a massive scale.
But critics worry that some of the ideas risk
harming nature rather than helping it.
BY JENNIFER ALSEVER

size lamp—came off
the manufacturing
line in Boston, and,
along with more than
250 others, will be
installed near Phoenix.
Unlike a real tree,
which absorbs 10 tons
of carbon in its life-
time, these mechani-
cal trees may one day
collect up to 32 tons
of CO 2 each in a single
year—the equivalent
of what seven pas-
senger vehicles emit
annually. “We need
to start cleaning up
after ourselves,”
Lackner says.
Fake trees may

For two decades,
Klaus Lackner has
been fixated on trees
and how they pull
carbon dioxide from
the air. What if, the
Arizona State Uni-
versity engineering
professor theorized,
you could create a
machine that worked
like a tree—but a
thousand times more
efficiently—thereby
reducing the effects
of climate change?
In January, Lack-
ner’s first such artifi-
cial tree—which looks
less like a real tree
and more like a super-

GEOENGINEERING

CAR.W.04.20.XMIT.indd 66 FINAL 3/10/2020 8:24:25 PM

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