It’s also worth noting that the Energy Act of 2020 reorganized the Office of Fossil Energy at DOE to be inclusive of carbon management technologies and, subsequently, set up the first CDR research and development (R&D) program. Both pieces of legislation include elements that help to boost DAC deployment and build out supporting infrastructure like geologic storage and CO 2 transportation pipelines. In addition, the 45Q tax credit enhancement in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed last year, allows DAC developers to receive $180 per ton of CO 2 sequestered. In total, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) passed in 2021 provides roughly $3.5 billion for four commercial-scale regional DAC hubs, $100 million for a commercial DAC prize, and another $4 million for a pre-commercial DAC prize. In addition to these plants, 19 other potential DAC sites across the US were selected to receive DOE funding that assists with early-stage project development. ![]() Most recently, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced funding site selections for two major commercial-scale DAC hubs-one in Texas and the other in Louisiana-that will together have the capability to remove at least two million metric tons of CO 2 once fully operational. For example, as part of their pledge to invest one billion dollars in CDR, Microsoft has purchased carbon removal from three major DAC companies thus far-Climeworks, Heirloom, and CarbonCapture. Since we released our 2019 report, unprecedented policy support along with a surge in DAC investment has fundamentally changed the landscape for DAC. The slower other decarbonization strategies are in scaling up, the more DAC the US will need to meet its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. The range of DAC capacity needed represents how quickly we can scale other decarbonization strategies such as energy efficiency, electrification, decarbonization of the electric power system, and the availability of other carbon dioxide removal (CDR) systems. ![]() In a 2019 Rhodium report on advancing direct air capture, we estimate that the US needs to scale up to between 690 and 2,260 million metric tons (MMT) of annual DAC capacity in order to decarbonize the US by 2050 (Figure 1). That said, unlike traditional carbon capture, the main utility of DAC is that it results in net-removal of CO 2 from the atmosphere-not just abatement like traditional carbon capture. Because ambient air concentrations of CO 2 are much more dilute than flue gas, the costs tend to be higher for DAC than traditional carbon capture. Scaling the direct air capture industryĭirect air capture (DAC) is a technology similar to traditional carbon capture that captures carbon dioxide (CO 2) from ambient air instead of an industrial or electric power flue gas stream. We also dig into the types of occupations that will benefit from DAC scale-up and find that the industry will support a diverse set of construction trades, maintenance workers, and business operators. After the plant is built, we estimate there are approximately 340 jobs needed to operate the facility over its lifetime. We find that the construction and engineering of a DAC plant creates 1,215 annual average jobs over the roughly five-year time period it takes to build the facility. ![]() In this note, we assess the job creation and workforce development benefits associated with a commercial-scale DAC facility. Last month, the Department of Energy announced DAC hub funding (a program incentivized by IIJA) to support the development of two commercial-scale DAC facilities and 19 early-stage projects across the US.Īssuming this momentum continues and policy support is extended long-term, DAC deployment at scale will require a large, well-trained workforce to build and operate DAC facilities. Over the past few years, the Energy Act of 2020, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have ushered in a wave of DAC policy support in the United States. Alongside the scale-up of clean electricity generation, electrification of end-uses, and other emissions abatement strategies, DAC could be a complementary technology that allows for emissions offsets from hard-to-abate sectors, and that can remove emissions that already exist in the atmosphere. Direct air capture (DAC), a carbon dioxide removal solution that captures carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, has the potential to play a pivotal role in meeting the US goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
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