The Last Caretaker CO2: Where to Get Carbon Dioxide and How to Store It

Nowhere. No shop or trader in the game sells CO2, and you will not find any lying around to pick up. It is the exhaust of machines that burn fuel, so you collect it yourself.

The containers work the same way: CO2 Barrels and CO2 Tanks never turn up as loot. You unlock them in the skill tree and build them.

Yes. Channel37 added a CO2 storage module in Update 03 (March 18, 2026), so forum replies from 2025 that say CO2 cannot be kept are out of date.

Burn petrol in an electric generator. The Portable Electric Generator unlocks at skill tier 5 and the Large Electric Generator at tier 15. Both turn petrol into electricity, and the CO2 leaves through a port on the top front of the machine.

A Large Electric Generator gives about 60,000 L of CO2 an hour, so it fills a 500 L CO2 Barrel in about 30 seconds.

The Portable Electric Generator is the small version and gives about a third as much, around 20,000 L an hour.

Gas Cable carries the CO2 from that port to where you want it. It unlocks at skill tier 12, and you can also pick up lengths of it in the world, at Exodus Station for one.

Yes, while its diesel engines are running. At the stern there are two exhaust pipes; the left one, seen from behind the boat, has a CO2 port. Plug a Gas Cable into it and lead it to a tank built on deck.

The Salvage Gyro and the CS-17 Courier Skimmer, the jet ski, have a CO2 exhaust port as well.

Players who tried it got only 100 to 150 L an hour from the gyro and the jet ski, and the tank has to stand next to the parked vehicle, so it is rarely worth the petrol.

A Large Electric Generator built next to the tanks you want to fill. It runs on the petrol you make anyway, sits wherever you build it, and makes far more CO2 than the boat or a vehicle.

The CO2 Barrel holds 500 L. It unlocks at skill tier 19 for 2 skill points and takes 1 Storage Cylinder, 1 Filtering System, 1 Connector Ports and 1 Alloy Frame.

The CO2 Tank comes earlier, at skill tier 16, and takes 2 Connector Ports, 4 Alloy Frames, 1 Storage Cylinder, 1 Filtering System and 2 Advanced Alloy Mesh.

It holds about 6,000 L, as much as twelve barrels.

The CO2 Reactor Tank unlocks last, at skill tier 22.

Without power it is simply a big store for about 12,000 L.

The funnel on top of the CO2 Tank and the CO2 Reactor Tank only lets gas out, and while nothing is plugged into it the CO2 escapes. Attach a Gas Cable or a Gas Cable Extender to the funnel; it does not have to lead anywhere.

No. Leave the port empty and the generator lets its CO2 out into the air and keeps making power. A generator that will not start at all usually has nothing drawing its electricity: give it a battery with room or a machine that is switched on.

Once the CO2 port is connected, the gas needs somewhere to go. When the tank at the other end is full, or the Sabatier Reactor it feeds has stopped, the generator stops too. Empty the tank or add another, or check the reactor’s water, power and outputs.

A Sabatier Reactor (skill tier 16) combines CO2 with fresh water and electricity into methane and oxygen, the two gases the Exodus rocket needs.

Give the CO2 Reactor Tank power and it turns the CO2 inside it into Carbon Fiber.