The world’s biggest carbon capture facility is being built in Texas. Will it work?

The plant will inject 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the ground each year - but is it just greenwashing from big oil?

Rising out of the arid scrubland of western Texas is the world's largest project yet to remove excess carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere, a quest that has been lauded as essential to help avert climate catastrophe. The creators of the project have now been awarded funding from the Biden administration, even as critics attack the technology as a fossil fuel industry-backed distraction.

Proponents of setting up enormous fans to gulp in huge amounts of air and remove planet-heating carbon from it, a process called direct air capture (DAC), are basking in their greatest breakthroughs yet in the US. In June, ceremonial shovels were plunged into the dirt in Ector county, Texas, to mark the start of a $1bn project called Stratos, which aims to remove 500,000 tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere a year once fully operational in 2025.