Can Direct Air Carbon Capture Really Work?

 Swiss company Climeworks’ ‘Mammoth’ opened for business in May, but can it do what the company has promised and sequester huge quantities of carbon dioxide using direct capture technology? The “world’s largest” direct carbon capture plant to date is now operational in Iceland. However, many energy experts are questioning whether the technology will be as effective as Climeworks anticipates, as other companies around the globe work to replicate the model to help reduce carbon emissions. 

 Direct Air Capture (DAC) Technology

Climeworks, founded in 2009, is a Swiss company specializing in carbon dioxide removal (CDR) using direct air capture (DAC) technology. In recent years, it has attracted investments from some of the world’s largest multinationals, such as Microsoft, BCG, UBS, and JPMorgan. 

The firm has spent years developing DAC technologies, which extract CO2 directly from the atmosphere using a vacuum-like mechanism. This differs from conventional carbon capture technology, which is typically carried out at the point of emissions. The captured carbon dioxide can be permanently stored in deep geological formations or used for a variety of applications.

By 2022, 27 DAC plants had been commissioned globally, capable of capturing around 0.01 Mt CO2 a year. The technology is highly attractive for hard-to-abate industries that are looking to reduce their emissions in line with national climate aims.  

A Mammoth Project  

In May, Climeworks partially launched its biggest project to date, Mammoth. Located in Iceland, Mammoth is around ten times larger than its predecessor plant, Orca. Climeworks took around 18 months to develop the project, and it is expected to provide the blueprint for future facilities. The structure will be powered using Iceland’s abundant green geothermal energy.

Mammoth has a modular design with space for 72 “collector containers” (vacuums) which can be stacked on top of each other to be easily moved around. It is expected to be complete by the end of the year and will be capable of collecting around 36,000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually once fully operational, equivalent to removing around 7,800 cars from the road. 

Climeworks did not give an exact cost for each ton of carbon removed, but said it was closer to $1,000 a ton than $100 a ton – the latter of which is widely seen as a key threshold for making the technology affordable and viable.

Climeworks plans to transport the carbon underground to be stored and naturally transformed into stone, which the Icelandic company Carbfix will help Climeworks do.  

Several other companies are also investing in DAC projects, such as Occidental and BlackRock. Their joint venture STRATOS, a new facility in Texas, is expected to be capable of removing 500,000 tons of carbon a year to support decarbonization efforts. 

Attracting Big Investors

Global financial giant Morgan Stanley is optimistic about the technology, having signed a deal with Climeworks to develop a DAC site. In October, the firm announced it would be investing in the development of the landmark project, which will help Climeworks expand to the U.S. market. 

The DAC development – Project Cypress, in Louisiana, is also being supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), which awarded $50 million to Battelle, an applied science and technology nonprofit organization, Climeworks, and Heirloom Carbon Technologies, Inc. to develop the project.  

This is one of several carbon capture projects in the U.S. being supported by DoE financing. In total, Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects have received $2.5 billion in funding to help accelerate the demonstration and deployment of carbon management technologies. 

Scientists are Not Sold on Direct Carbon Capture Tech

While several governments and energy companies are betting big on carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a means of decarbonization, many energy experts believe that CCS companies are overpromising. 

This year, a team of researchers in the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) examined several DAC strategies and found that they generally rely on overly optimistic assumptions about how much CO2 can be removed by using the technology. This suggests that the strategies will be unlikely to perform as predicted. However, they did state that “Including DAC in plans to stabilize the climate makes sense. Much work is now underway to develop DAC systems, and the technology looks promising.” 

Nevertheless, even if the technology can work on the commercial scale, many industry players are deterred from incorporating DAC technology into operations due to the exorbitant price of the equipment. It costs Climeworks nearly $1,000 to capture and store a ton of CO2, making DAC one of the most expensive of all the climate mitigation options. 

By August this year, there were plans for a further 130 DAC facilities worldwide, suggesting that the carbon capture trend is only just beginning. Therefore, it is important that governments worldwide establish clear rules and regulations to ensure that DAC projects are being effectively monitored and that there is transparency in the reporting of operational results.  

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