US to provide $3.5bn for direct air capture

The US Department of Energy (DoE) said May 19 it would provide $3.5bn under president Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support carbon capture and storage (CCS) using direct air capture (DAC) technology.

The Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs programme will support four large-scale, regional DAC hubs that each comprise a network of CO₂ removal projects, US energy secretary Jennifer Granholm said.

“The UN's latest climate report made clear that removing legacy carbon pollution from the air through direct air capture and safely storing it is an essential weapon in our fight against the climate crisis,” she said. “President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is funding new technologies that will not only make our carbon-free future a reality but will help position the U.S. as a net-zero leader.”

Each of the hubs, the DoE said, will have the capacity to capture and store at least 1mn mt/yr of CO₂, either from a single unit or from multiple interconnected units. By 2050, the department says, DAC will need to be deployed at gigatonne scale.

Canada’s Carbon Engineering is working with Oxy Low Carbon Ventures to develop a 1mn mt/yr DAC facility in the Permian basin, while Swiss-based Climeworks last year launched its Orca facility in Iceland, which captures up to 4,000 mt/yr of CO₂.