Named for the friend of a French king, Louisiana’s Lake Maurepas is a large tidal estuary at the confluence of four rivers, a geographic lace-hole in the boot-shaped state. Today, it’s known mainly for shrimping. But if a company called Air Products gets its way, the 93-square-mile expanse will also be the setting for a mile-deep pool of carbon dioxide, a project aided by the Biden administration’s big bet on carbon capture technology.
Companies whose carbon capture ambitions once extended only to a sort of greenwashing — putting up billboards in Houston advertising the technology without actually having projects planned — have started to get serious, said Charles Fridge, CEO of Verde CO2, a Houston-based company that has worked in carbon capture since 2019. Since that time [of the IRA passing], we’ve had probably a quadrupling or greater number of competitors,” Fridge said in an interview. “It’s been a sort of land rush. Emitters are recognizing the former trash they were emitting into the air is now a treasure. It was previously something they were ashamed of, a byproduct. Now it’s a currency.
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