Overview of direct air capture by Dr Hanak

Do you know what direct air capture is?

It's a piece of an engineering kit that can suck CO2 directly out of thin air.

Whenever I speak about DAC, the same questions come up. I thought I'd share some of the answers here.

𝐃𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐀𝐂 𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥?

I believe it depends. It depends on how well we will decarbonise our economy and whether our activities will converge towards the Paris Agreement targets.

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐀𝐂?

I don't think we should be working towards a specific timeline here. We can deploy DAC now if it makes sense from a business perspective.

We may need to ramp up the deployment of DAC and other greenhouse gas removal technologies, if we fail to decarbonise our economy (i.e. 2030 and 2050).

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐀𝐂?

CO2 concentration in the air is low (415ppm), making it a difficult separation. DAC also needs to be driven by low-carbon or renewable energy.

Energy requirement and volume of the contactors result in high OPEX and CAPEX. Currently, DAC is estimated to cost 200-500 €/tCO2.

𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬?

There are several ways in which we can reduce the cost and improve the business case for DAC