Amazon is investing in direct-air-capture technology that filters carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. It has previously pledged to become carbon neutral, or a net-zero carbon emitter, by 2040.
The retail and tech giant said it is purchasing credits for the removal of 250,000 metric tons of carbon over the course of ten years. The credits are with Stratos, a direct-air-capture plant in Texas being built by 1PointFive, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum. The plant is said to be operational by mid-2025.
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Occidental is investing about $1 billion into Stratos, which will capture carbon by sucking it out of the air and driving it deep into the earth via wells, intending for it to remain there for hundreds of years. Stratos plans to remove 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air a year using this method, and 1PointFive intends to build 100 similar facilities globally by 2035.
Stratos will use data derived from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to monitor its performance and self-correct to become more efficient. Future 1PointFive plants will make use of the AWS data.
Amazon also announced it is investing in CarbonCapture Inc., a similar company that is working on direct-air-capture systems that will be upgradable on a rolling basis as better carbon filtration technology is released.
Korean researchers recently published a study on carbon removal technology and found that such a method would not have an effect on short-term climate change effects. Removing carbon from the atmosphere would only begin to affect the climate 200 years after the removal was finished, according to their results. The negative effects of climate change would continue to affect regions even as the carbon was being removed, with droughts and wildfires becoming even worse long before they would eventually get reduced.
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