Critical Role for Direct Air Capture

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Direct Air Capture, or “DAC”, is a technology that reduces the carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere. DAC works by pulling outdoor air into filtration machinery that chemically captures CO2 by combining it with a solvent, in one process, or physically trapping it with particle filters, in another process. In both, the captured CO2 is then heated and released in a concentrated form that can be sequestered into a permanent destination. The development, scale, and cost declines of the process are essential to improving environmental conditions and achieving net-zero. The economics of the technology today are poor compared to other decarbonization activities, but a viable version with removal efficiency and a strong permanence profile, represents an incredible opportunity to achieve sustainability and climate goals.

It’s critical to develop and scale DAC for a variety of reasons. Foremost, is the fact that some human activities and industrial processes have no suitable replacement and abandonment is not an option. These hard-to-abate emissions make DAC necessary because it directly counteracts emissions-producing activities. Additionally, the challenge of putting teeth into international environmental laws means some countries won’t adopt zero-emissions technologies to decarbonize their economies. But with distributed DAC technology, non-participants can be circumvented because the systems can be placed anywhere and still work to draw down CO2.

While today’s best opportunities to reduce emissions are at the source and with the end user, solely focusing on each next best climate project, is a mistake. Heat pumps and renewable power generation are economical and have had great progress thus far. However, the low-hanging fruit will run out, and only hard-to-abate emissions will remain, at which point DAC needs to be available.

Realizing the benefits of DAC requires nurturing its technical and economic foundations. A scientifically literate population and an education system focused on STEM are a phenomenal basis. Enhancing financial models to bring carbon credits from DAC to market is also crucial to forming an efficient marketplace. Ultimately DAC will give humanity a critical final tool to bring human climate impacts under control.