DOE to fund $3.5B program to capture, store CO2 from the air
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) outlined its plans to fund a $3.5 billion program to capture and store carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution directly from the air.
The funding for the Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program comes through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The program will support four large-scale, regional direct air capture hubs that each comprise a network of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects. The widespread deployment of direct air capture technologies and CO2 transport, and storage infrastructure is part of President Joe Biden’s goal of achieving a net-zero economy by 2050.
“The UN’s latest climate report made clear that removing legacy carbon pollution from the air through direct air capture and safely storing it is an essential weapon in our fight against the climate crisis,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said. “President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is funding new technologies that will not only make our carbon-free future a reality but will help position the U.S. as a net-zero leader while creating good-paying jobs for a transitioning clean energy workforce.”
Direct air capture is a process that separates CO2 from ambient air. The CO2 is then permanently stored deep underground or converted for use in products like concrete that prevent its release back into the atmosphere. By midcentury, CDR will need to be deployed at the gigaton scale. To put this in perspective, one gigaton of subsurface sequestered CO2 is equivalent to the annual emissions from the U.S. light-duty vehicle fleet – that’s the equivalent of approximately 250 million vehicles driven in one year.
Each of the projects selected for the Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program will demonstrate the delivery and storage or end use of removed carbon. The hubs must have the capacity to capture and then permanently store at least one million metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually. In the development and deployment of the four regional direct air capture hubs, DOE will also emphasize environmental justice, community engagement, consent-based siting, equity and workforce development, and domestic supply chains and manufacturing.
