Carbon Engineering Ltd. is doubling the design capacity for its first commercial Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant.

The DAC plant will now remove one million tons of CO2 directly from the atmosphere and permanently store underground each year, up from an initial capacity of 500,000 tons.

DAC is a technology that processes atmospheric air, removes CO2 and delivers it in compresses, purified form for use or storage.

Construction for the plant is expected to begin in 2021, with the plant becoming operational within two years.

Steve Oldham, chief executive officer of Carbon Engineering, said the company has observed a growing consensus in the science, policy and private sectors that both aggressive emissions reductions and large-scale removal of CO2 from the atmosphere is essential.

“By capturing CO2 directly out of the air, DAC can eliminate any emissions, regardless of where and when they occurred,” said Oldham. “Importantly, the exact amount of carbon captured and permanently stored is measured, making this a verifiable and quantifiable solution for carbon dioxide removal, or ‘negative emissions,’ that has the potential to be scaled up to capture and store huge quantities of atmospheric CO2.”

The planned facility is being engineered with Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, LLC (OLCV), a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp.

The Canadian-based clean energy company has been capturing CO2 from the atmosphere since 2015, and converting captured CO2 into fuels since 2017.