What You Need To Know Keeping the planet cool enough to avoid catastrophic climate change requires both cutting emissions pumped out annually and removing carbon dioxide that’s already in the atmosphere. One technology that can help both steps is finally gaining traction: carbon capture and storage (CCS). Developed in the early 20th century, the first commercial use of CCS began in the U.S. in the 1970s. Oil companies pushed carbon dioxide into aging oil wells to increase the extraction of oil. As a side effect, CO₂ remained trapped in the geological layer. But the use of CCS as a climate technology began in the 1990s, when Norwegian oil giant Equinor began sinking CO₂ in saline reservoirs so it could avoid paying a carbon tax. More recently, startups have launched that filter the air for CO₂ and then pump it underground. After nearly 50 years of commercial use, there are […]