The to us The Energy Department said Friday it plans to invest $1.2 billion (€1.1 billion) in two direct air capture (DAC) facilities — in Texas and Louisiana. Absorbs carbon from the air.
Each site will have carbon-absorbing vacuums that will remove one million tons of carbon dioxide annually. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of 445,000 gas-powered cars.
“Reducing our carbon emissions The growing impacts of climate change cannot be reversed alone,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
“We also need to remove the CO2 we’ve already put into the atmosphere.”
What is DAC technology?
Direct air intake (DAC), also known as carbon dioxide removal (CDR), uses chemical reactions to remove CO2 from the air.
Carbon dioxide can be stored underground or used in concrete or aviation fuel products.
The technology for direct flight capture engines is relatively untested and currently, only a few are operational worldwide.
But the technology has to become much cheaper to scale quickly enough to impact the planet.
“If we can apply it at scale, this technology will help us make serious progress toward our net-zero emissions goals, while focusing on using, sequestering, sequestering more clean energy,” Granholm said.
The United Nations The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers direct capture of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as one of the necessary methods to combat climate change. Global warming.
Who are the contractors?
The Cypress Project in Louisiana is run by the American non-profit Battelle. It will partner with another American company, Heirloom Carbon Technology, and Swiss company Climworks, which already operates a DAC plant in Iceland.
“It depends on a number of factors, but I would like to capture the first in 2025/2026,” ClimWorks director and founder John Wurzbacher told Reuters.
“Two years ago, we were in a petri dish where we removed grams of CO2 from the air,” said Heirloom CEO Shashank Samala.
“If we continue this pace of exponential growth every year, I think a billion tons a year can definitely, definitely be achieved.”
The Texas project will be led by US company Occidental and other partners including Carbon Engineering. It could be built to remove up to 30 million tons of CO2 per year, Occidental reports.
dh/lo (AFP, Reuters)
