A Roadmap for Achieving Scalable, Safe, and Low-cost Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage

Abstract

Direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) involves a set of approaches for capturing CO2 directly from the air and its subsequent long-term storage. DACCS is at an early stage of technical development and currently faces a variety of challenges, including high cost and energy requirements. Building on publicly available data, this paper provides: (i) an overview and classification of DACCS systems, (ii) a harmonization of technical and economic performance of direct air capture technologies, (iii) a comprehensive list of technical- and infrastructure-based obstacles to scaling DACCS systems, and (iv) a roadmap and list of priority initiatives for research, development, demonstration, and deployment of DACCS. Our intent is to drive progress against high-impact priority actions, with a focus on accelerating research, development, and deployment of safe, scalable, and low cost DACCS as a component of the broader carbon dioxide removal portfolio.

Direct air capture of CO2: from insights into the current and emerging approaches to future opportunities

“…DAC technology has an estimated cost of $264-1,000 per tCO 2 assuming 75% air capture efficiency and 95% CO 2 purity (National Academies of Sciences, 2019), which is still significantly higher than the cost of CO 2 capture from flue gas ($50-100/tCO 2 ) (Lebling et al, 2022). It is important to note that the current capture efficiency of DAC technology is <10% (Zeman, 2007;Long-Innes and Struchtrup, 2022), which significantly impacts the cost, making the debate to achieve the highly ambitious target of $100-300/tCO 2 viability skeptical (Küng et al, 2023). Since, DAC is an emerging technology, it is imperative to comprehensively explore the general energy requirements and economic feasibility, as well as the environmental viability of a breakthrough sorbent.…”

Smart use of renewable electricity and carbon capture in the transport sector

“…At present, however, the limited availability of carbon storage facilities needs to be recognized [11]. Scalability of DACS technologies also requires investment [12]. Although both onboard and onshore carbon capture chains may in principle yield net zero GHG emissions, neither of them is renewable in the sense of a circular flow of material.…”