While avoiding the worst dangers of climate change will likely require sucking carbon dioxide out of the sky, prominent scientists have long dismissed such technologies as far too expensive.
While avoiding the worst dangers of climate change will likely require sucking carbon dioxide out of the sky, prominent scientists have long dismissed such technologies as far too expensive.
But a detailed new analysis published today in the journal Joule finds that direct air capture may be practical after all. The study concludes it would cost between $94 and $232 per ton of captured carbon dioxide, if existing technologies were implemented on a commercial scale. One earlier estimate, published in Proceedings of the National Academies,put that figure at more than $1,000 (though the calculations were made on what’s known as an avoided-cost basis, which would add about 10 percent to the new study’s figures).
Crucially, the lowest-cost design, optimized to produce and sell alternative fuels made from the captured carbon dioxide, could already be profitable with existing public policies in certain markets (see “The carbon-capture era may finally be starting”). The higher cost estimates are for plants that would deliver compressed carbon dioxide for permanent underground storage.
Read more at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Image: Carbon Engineering's direct air capture pilot plant in Squamish, British Columbia. CREDIT: CARBON ENGINEERING
