Big oil invest in equipment that sucks CO2 and pollutants out of the air

Houston Chronicle:

Sucking greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane out of the air to slow climate change seems like the stuff of science fiction, a fantastic idea dreamed up by some modern-day Jules Verne.

But the technology is here. And oil companies have begun investing to advance that technology and deploy it on a commercial scale.

Chevron, the nation’s second-largest oil company, and Houston’s Occidental Petroleum, one of the largest independents, this year became the first major oil companies to put their money into so-called negative emissions technologies with the goal of developing “direct air capture” factories that would remove carbon emissions from the air in places such as the Permian Basin in West Texas, and then use the captured CO2 in the oil-production process or as a recycled fuel additive.
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To the extent that CO2 is perceived as a problem, this technology makes more sense than most alternative energy sources such as wind and solar.  The fossil fuel phobic left is unlikely to be satisfied with it, but it will probably beat their inefficient and undependable alternative solutions.

CO2 is already being used to enhance production of oil from existing wells.  Other technology is converting the captured CO2 into coal to recycle it.