CE opens plant

SQUAMISH: A company with global plans to pull carbon from thin air to make fuel, while tackling climate change, opened a pilot plant on Friday in this remote western Canadian community.

Carbon Engineering (CE), backed by Bill Gates and other investors, unveiled a test facility able to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using giant fans. That carbon goes through a series of chemical processes and emerges as pellets, which can be used to make fuel or simply be stored underground.

The company was founded in Calgary in 2009 by David Keith, a Harvard University climate scientist, with funding from private investors.