@1zhs - it's typical for any company to claim, publicly, that they are #1. No one wants to tell shareholders and investment companies that they are #3. Inside Annandale though, it is well known that "our" CCS technology is only the 3rd best .... and a distant 3rd at that. I say "our" (in quotes) because we all know that it isn't EM technology - it was invented and produced by a company called "Global Thermostat" and EM's involvement is really just helping them with scale-up.
As usual, EM were late to the game and by the time they became interested (primarily by the prospect of government subsidies), Global Thermostat were the only company with direct air capture technology who weren't already contracted with EM's competitors. And if you read the article at this link (https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/inside-america-s-race-to-scale-carbon-capture-technology), you will understand why. They are a company run by unscrupulous managers who were less-than-stellar academics, who appear to have fabricated stories about contracts, partnerships and investments, and who have consistently over-promised on what it can actually deliver. In fact, when EM first handed over $15 million to them, they didn't have any commercialized technology.
While you might have thought that sensible business people and researchers would have run away from a deal with "Global Thermostat" (and pre-merger Exxon certainly would have), the truth is that this has become the way that CSR operates. With the leadership of Dr Syrup, CSR has established a track record of over promising, over spending, under delivering, recycling old projects and leveraging knowledge from 3rd party companies and universities to claim it as its own. Therefore it seems logical to me that the CCS work is just the same as the research into Algae - a complete sham, a smoke and mirrors deception for PR purposes only.