Fortune - 04.2020

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