Government to tap $3.5B for Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs in demonstration of CO2 removal technology

With $3.5 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, federal organizations are working to create four regional direct air capture (DAC) hubs around the United States to demonstrate how new CO2 removal technology could help counteract the climate crisis.

Efforts are being led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, and National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). Together, they will turn to DAC technologies, which use chemical reactions and fans to yank CO2 from the air and pass it through adsorbing materials, while passive contractors use wind to move that air across the adsorbing material. Once separated from ambient air, extracted CO2 could be provided in a purified, compressed form to underground storage or converted into other valuable products.

Proposed hubs will demonstrate the processing, transportation, storage, and/or conversion of CO2 captured from the atmosphere with DAC technology and push the commercialization of these technologies. The federal agencies predicted that the hubs should be able to remove, sequester, and/or use at least 1,000,000 metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually. They could eventually be linked or developed into a regional or interregional carbon network.

“There are four specific sub-goals in the initial DAC Hub project,” Elliot Roth, a project manager in NETL’s CO2 removal and conversion team, said. “First of all, the effort is designed to help validate commercial-scale demonstrations of DAC technologies to build confidence leading to private sector capital formation. That step incorporates assessing scale-up risks, cost performance, business models, host sites, infrastructure, markets, and financing structures for the most promising technologies and Hub approaches.”

The project also actively seeks to build infrastructure for scaling up DAC technologies and concepts, from clean power generation to heat integration, transport, and secure geologic storage. Researchers will work to maximize net-emissions goals and address possible environmental impacts through the hubs at a commercial scale while providing a responsible demonstration of DAC technologies and their capabilities for progress on CO2 removal.

Initially, funding will provide $1.2 billion for the conceptualization, design, planning, construction, and operation of DAC hubs. Other opportunities should follow, up to the $3.5 billion authorized.