New research shows a fleet of DAC CO2 scrubbers could strip CO2 from the atmosphere, but the technology has many challenges to face before this happens. DAC technology could be essential for fighting against global warming. (Image credit: Geoengineering Monitor)
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Carbon dioxide is an ongoing problem that continues to get worst. It was recently reported that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was at its highest in human history: 415 parts per million (ppm). To avoid the dangers of global warming, the CO2 in the atmosphere has to be removed. This can be done by either enhancing carbon storage in natural ecosystems, which use land and water, or by using direct air capture (DAC) technology. DAC removes CO2 from the air and then either store it underground or uses it for products.
New research suggests an emergency deployment of a fleet of “CO2 scrubbers” using DAC technology to slow down global warming. Sounds good, so what’s the hold-up? The technology would require a wartime level of funding from the government.
There are already several companies using DAC technology, such as Climeworks who operate 15 DAC machines across Europe and Canadian company Carbon Engineering, which concentrates CO2 after filtering it through a solution. While effective, there are still many challenges DAC technology has to overcome before it goes wide scale.
The technology is expensive compared to other CO2 cleaning methods but is expected to drop in price as the technology scales up. DAC machines also use a lot of energy. Because they process large volumes of air, research shows DAC machines could use a quarter of global energy in 2100. It almost defeats the purpose of using the machines in the first place. Luckily, there are DAC methods in development to reduce its energy use, such as a mobile DAC using metal-organic frameworks.
Despite its challenges, DAC technology has some benefits, like using less land and water than planting forests or storing CO2 in soils and oceans. It’s also gaining support from big companies. Last year, Microsoft included the technology in its carbon negative plan. The technology could see great growth in Australia. The country not only has large areas of land not suitable for crop growing, but it also has lots of sunlight, which is ideal for solar-powered DAC facilities. Australia is also home to the world’s best sites to store CO2 in underground reserves.
Cleaning up CO2 seems like a huge task but studying how these DAC technologies could help is a big step. Of course, it’s going to take more than these machines to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but it’s still better than doing nothing.
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