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The world’s largest DAC plant is now operational: Swiss direct air capture company Climeworks began operating the world’s largest direct air capture and storage (DAC+S) plant, Mammoth, in Iceland, according to a press release published last week. The plant is set to capture up to 36k tons of CO2 annually — ten times larger than its predecessor plant Orca. Despite representing a major milestone for DAC tech, the capacity is negligible compared to the 20 bn tons of CO2 that needs to be captured annually to offset global emissions.
How does Direct Air Capture work? Direct air capture (DAC) is a process of capturing CO2 directly from the atmosphere using chemical reactions. It can be set up at any location — unlike regular carbon capture which is carried out at the point of emissions such as factories. DAC uses solvents that selectively react with and trap CO2 which is then injected and stored in deep geological formations or sold and used for various applications including manufacturing synthetic aviation fuels and building materials.
Proponents of DAC argue the tech could accelerate decarbonization: DAC can mitigate the effects of rising temperatures by actively reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere. When deployed, the 130 DAC facilities currently at various stages of development, would capture 75 Mt of CO2 per year, which is the level required in 2030 under the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) Scenario. DAC is also considered an efficient form of carbon capture in terms of required land as it can capture up to 1000x CO2 than reforestation in the same land space. It’s also based on a modular tech design, making it highly scalable and measurable.
But oil and gas are hijacking the tech to continue production, scientists warn: Scientists warned that DAC should not distract attention from other mitigation measures — especially reducing fossil fuel use — to efficiently cut emissions. Carbon capture — including DAC — has been primarily used by oil and gas industries for enhanced oil recovery, a technique that injects CO2 into oil fields to extract more oil, effectively leading to a net increase in atmospheric CO2, according to Scientific American. While the technology promises to address emissions from industries like steel, cement, and chemicals, its large-scale effectiveness remains unproven, especially as some countries such as the EU have set carbon capture goals without setting specific targets for the number of facilities needed.
Commercialization challenges: DAC is more expensive per ton of CO2-removed than other approaches of carbon capture making it highly financially unsustainable. The CO2 in the air is more diluted than directly at high-emission factories and this contributes to DAC’s higher energy needs. Energy sources need to be zero- or very low-carbon which is expensive to maximize net CO2 capture. Some have also voiced concerns about the toxicity of the solvents used in the process and the risks of long-term storage solutions. Most of the announced DAC facilities are still in the early stages of development and can’t be operational or reach final investment status without further development of market policies and mechanisms to create demand.
Regional countries started adopting various methods of carbon capture to achieve their net-zero goals, especially Gulf states which are expected to continue tapping into their oil and gas reserves for the next 20-100 years. Gulf states are trying to minimize the emissions from these fuels using technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), converting hydrocarbons to hydrogen, ammonia, or CO2 using direct air capture.
KSA is among the regional investors in DAC: Saudi Arabia — which set a bar in efforts to cut emissions with a carbon-capture target of 44 mn tons a year by 2035 — announced its is designing its first DAC plant in 2022. The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center also signed an MoU with the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan in July to collaborate on energy and climate efforts including DACs. Saudi’s Aramco Ventures participated in a USD 80 mn funding round for US-based climate tech company CarbonCapture, marking one of the largest investments into the technology. Aramco also joined forces with Siemens Energy to develop a DAC test unit in the country’s Dharan city.
UAE followed suit: UAE’s Adnoc signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Occidental Petroleum to explore potential investment opportunities in CCS hubs in the UAE and the US, last month. The carbon capture program, which will include potential investment in CCUS and DAC, is part of an initial USD 15 bn decarbonization investment in low-carbon solutions to reach Adnoc’s Net-Zero by 2045.
Oman has its own DAC projects: The Sultanate gained attention for its potential to host large-scale carbon capture projects, according to an International Energy Agency’s (IEA) report (pdf) last June. 44.01 and DAC company Aircapture are working on a DAC and mineralization project in Oman. The companies will break ground on the project in Oman’s Hajar mountains in late 2024, using and upscaling the use of peridotite mineralization in reducing atmospheric CO2 levels. The project will have the capacity to deliver 500 tons of liquid CO2 annually with plans to increase the capacity later on.
Climeworks is also working with the sultanate: The company is partnering with Omani startup 44.01 in June to study the deployment of DAC with storage in peridotite formations in the sultanate. Climeworks is also working on developing multiple megaton hubs in the US funded by over USD 600 mn from the US Department of Energy, and is exploring potential DAC+S sites in Norway, Kenya, and Canada. The company’s roadmap includes achieving megaton carbon removal capacity by 2030 and gigaton scale by 2050, the statement said.
DAC is being globally adopted: The US Department of Energy announced spending USD 1.2 bn on two DAC facilities in Texas and Louisiana in August, and Amazon already committed to purchasing 250k carbon from the 1PointFive (DAC) plant in Texas over 10 years. DAC is also included in the European Commission’s goal to store up to 50 Mt of CO2 a year by 2030. Japan’s plans to capture 6-12 Mt of CO2 per year by 2030 through the help of DAC plants. The UK dedicated GBP 20 bn to CCUS applications and DAC in its annual budget in 2022.
REMEMBER- CO2 is on the rise: A US observatory saw a record-breaking y-o-y increase in CO2 concentration in March of 4.7 parts per mn (ppm) compared to last year to reach 426 ppm — inching closer to the 465 ppm limit to keep temperatures 1.5°C.
With the addition of Mammoth, there are now 28 DAC plants commissioned globally, capturing only 0.01 metric tons (Mt) of CO2 per year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which recorded a 1.1% increase in CO2 emissions — equivalent to 410 Mt — in 2023 to reach a new record high of 37.4 bn tons (Gt).
