Heirloom’s plant in Tracy, Calif., pulls carbon dioxide from the air so it can be sealed permanently in concrete. Jim Wilson/The New York Times

We have been waiting for this day to arrive:

In a U.S. First, a Commercial Plant Starts Pulling Carbon From the Air

The technique is expensive but it could help fight climate change. Backers hope fast growth can bring down costs.

In an open-air warehouse in California’s Central Valley, 40-foot-tall racks hold hundreds of trays filled with a white powder that turns crusty as it absorbs carbon dioxide from the sky.

The start-up that built the facility, Heirloom Carbon Technologies, calls it the first commercial plant in the United States to use direct air capture, which involves vacuuming greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Another plant is operating in Iceland, and some scientists say the technique could be crucial for fighting climate change.

Heirloom will take the carbon dioxide it pulls from the air and have the gas sealed permanently in concrete, where it can’t heat the planet. To earn revenue, the company is selling carbon removal credits to companies paying a premium to offset their own emissions. Microsoft has already signed a deal with Heirloom to remove 315,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The company’s first facility in Tracy, Calif., which opens Thursday, is fairly small. The plant can absorb a maximum of 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, equal to the exhaust from about 200 cars. But Heirloom hopes to expand quickly.

“We want to get to millions of tons per year,” said Shashank Samala, the company’s chief executive. “That means copying and pasting this basic design over and over.”

The idea of using technology to suck carbon dioxide from the sky has gone from science fiction to big business. Hundreds of start-ups have emerged. The Biden administration in August awarded $1.2 billion to help several companies, including Heirloom, build larger direct air capture plants in Texas and Louisiana. Companies like Airbus and JPMorgan Chase are spending millions to buy carbon removal credits in order to fulfill corporate climate pledges.

Critics point out that many artificial methods of removing carbon dioxide from the air are wildly expensive, in the range of $600 per ton or higher, and some fear they could distract from efforts to reduce emissions. Environmentalists are wary of oil companies investing in the technology, fearing it could be used to prolong the use of fossil fuels.

Others say it’s essential to try. Nations have delayed cutting greenhouse gas emissions for so long, scientists say, that it is almost impossible to keep global warming at relatively tolerable levels unless countries both cut emissions sharply and also remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by midcentury, far more than can be achieved by simply planting trees…

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