Avnos, a Los Angeles-based startup, is is testing a machine in Bakersfield, California, that can suck carbon dioxide and water out of the air.
Photographer: Alisha Jucevic/Bloomberg
New Technology Could Capture Carbon and Water Out of Thin Air
Startup Avnos is piloting a machine that could help solve climate change — and adapt to impacts already in the pipeline.
A lightly trafficked stretch of road near Bakersfield, California, may seem an odd place to try to solve two environmental crises at once. But there, sandwiched between a decommissioned solar thermal project and an almond farm, a company is testing a machine that can suck carbon dioxide and water out of the air.
That machine is the first attempt by Avnos, a Los Angeles-based startup, to prove it can do what it calls hybrid direct air capture (DAC). Its technique would clean the air of CO2 and capture water that can be used in an era of worsening drought. It’s a moonshot bet on an already moonshot technology.