Preparing a site to stock CO 2 can take up to 10 years, so storage could become a serious bottleneck for both CCS and DAC development. "It's a huge challenge but it's not unprecedented," University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Gregory Nemet told AFP, citing other technologies, including solar panels, that have scaled up dramatically in a matter of decades. Plans for at least 130 DAC facilities are now at various stages of development, according to the IEA. The first million-tonne-per-year plant-developed by Occidental Petroleum in Texas-is scheduled to come online in the United States next year. To keep the mid-century net-zero target in play, CCS will need to divert 1.3 billion tonnes a year from power and industry-30 times more than last year-by 2030, according to the IEA.ĭAC must remove 60 Mt CO 2 per year by that date, several thousand-fold more than today.īut the nascent industry is burgeoning with new actors. Scaling upīoth CCS and DAC must be massively scaled up if they are to play a significant role in decarbonizing the global economy. Less than 30 DAC plants have been commissioned worldwide, and those in operation only capture about as much CO 2 in a year-10,000 tonnes-as the world emits in about 10 seconds. If all projects in the pipeline were realized, CO 2 capture capacity would expand eight-fold by 2030, but so far only five percent of announced projects have reached the final investment decision stage. In the fall of 2023, there were some 40 commercial-scale facilities worldwide applying carbon capture technology to industry, fuel transformation or power generation, isolating a total of 45 million tonnes (Mt) of CO 2, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The world's largest CCS plant, the Petra Nova facility in Texas, was mothballed three years after opening in 2017.īut the looming climate crisis and generous government subsidies have revived interest in CCS for the power sector and beyond. So far, bolting CCS facilities onto existing coal- and gas-fired power plants and then storing the captured CO 2 underground has proven technically feasible but uneconomical. Rather, oil and gas companies inject CO 2 into mature oil fields to extract crude that would otherwise remain inaccessible. The fossil fuel industry has been using CCS since the 1970s, but not to prevent CO 2 from leaching into the atmosphere. "If the CO 2 is utilized, then it is not removal," said Oliver Geden, a senior fellow at the German Institute for International Security Affairs. But some of that CO 2 will inevitably seep back into the air. Once isolated using either CCS or DAC, CO 2 can be used to make products such as building materials or "green" aviation fuel. The concentration of carbon dioxide in ambient air is only 420 parts per million (about 0.04 percent), so corralling CO 2 with DAC is very energy intensive. On the other hand, DAC extracts CO 2 molecules already there, making it a "negative emissions" technology.ĭAC can therefore generate credits for companies seeking to offset their greenhouse gas output-but only if the captured CO 2 is permanently stored, such as in depleted oil and gas reservoirs or in saline aquifers. What it isĬCS siphons off CO 2 from the exhaust, or flue gas, of fossil fuel-fired power plants as well as heavy industry.ĬO 2 makes up about 12 percent of these emissions from a coal-fired power plant, while in steel and cement production it is typically double that.ĬCS by itself only prevents additional carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. Here's a primer on what they are and how they differ. Thursday, a group of major energy companies including Britain's BP and France's TotalEnergies said they have awarded £4 billion ($5.1 billion) worth of contracts for a gas power plant in Britain to be equipped with CCS. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) and direct air capture (DAC) are both complex industrial processes that isolate CO 2, but these newly-booming technologies are fundamentally different and often conflated.
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