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The world wants to master the process of corralling carbon, and Occidental Petroleum Corp. is building a futuristic machine on the dusty plains of Texas designed to do just that.
The billion-dollar complex, called Stratos, will suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and bury it deep underground. Amazon.com Inc., Shopify Inc., Airbus SE and the Houston Texans football team are among the businesses signed up to pay by the ton for captured carbon, long before the site is operational. US President Joe Biden is putting hundreds of millions of dollars behind the technology. Occidental Chief Executive Officer Vicki Hollub has spent $1.1 billion buying the startup behind Stratos and, after successfully lobbying for government support, intends to build 100 plants just like it. Warren Buffett, Occidental’s biggest investor, has given his tacit blessing.