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DIRECT AIR CAPTURE


With the combination of increasing demands to decarbonise and the


EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF DAC TECHNOLOGY


Dr Dawid Hanak, Associate Professor in Energy and Process Engineering at Cranfield University, explains more about the role of Direct Air Capture technology in the journey to net-zero


same time, they face shortages of supplies of CO2 and high costs. That means a massive opportunity — given


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the right technology and financial models — for process businesses to benefit from active management and re-use of carbon. In principle, the decarbonisation of industries


with high CO2 emissions footprints can be made affordable through cycles of capture and re-use, with the costs being mitigated by the creation of new products and markets for re-usable carbon (aviation fuels, building products, to turn into plastics). If emission reduction and decarbonisation


measures fail to fully transform process industries to net-zero by 2050, the residual CO2 emissions will need to offset via greenhouse gas removal measures. Direct Air Capture (DAC) is an emerging technology that makes it possible to pull huge amounts of CO2 from the air with only limited need for land and water. What is needed is energy — making the current, early stage, forms of DAC expensive (estimated at around $600 per tonne CO2 removed). For this reason there have only been 19 DAC projects in operation over the past decade, accounting for the removal of only 0.01 million tonnes of CO2 annually — a tiny proportion in the context of the need to achieve an annual CO2 removal capacity of 980 million tonnes of CO2 by 2050 (according to the IEA's Net Zero Scenario). The largest unit currently working, for


example, is the Orca plant in Iceland. A collaborative project by Climeworks and Carbfix, Orca aims to capture and permanently store 4,000 tonnes of CO2 per year — equivalent to the amount of CO2


52 NOVEMBER 2022 | PROCESS & CONTROL


rocess industries are caught up in a CO2 paradox: they urgently need to find ways to reduce carbon emissions, but at the


opening up of CO2markets, now is the time for process industries to


build a more positive cycle of DAC development and implementation


captured by 170,000 trees per year, requiring 340 hectares of land. Arctic temperatures are causing operational issues, meaning the need for further technology development. There is momentum behind larger- scale projects, due to be operational in the mid-2020s: an upscaled version of Orca, the Mammoth plant, is due to remove and permanently store 36,000 tonnes of CO2 per year when fully operational. From 2024, Carbon Engineering’s DAC plant in the USA is expected to remove and permanently store up to 1Mt CO2/year — and is being supported by United Airlines as a means of offsetting emissions from its air travel operations. Carbon Engineering plans further plants in northeast Scotland for 2026, in Norway, and in Canada as part of an air-to-fuel plant producing 100 million litres of ultra-low carbon fuel. But the future growth and potential of DAC


will be dependent on costs rather than capacity, and how it works as part of different industry’s business models. Our work on DAC at Cranfield is focused on this issue: how we can reduce the cost to below $100 per tonne — a realistic target. We are applying lessons from the energy-intensive industries in terms of reducing the energy needed for carbon capture, as well as optimising the opportunities for CO2 re-use. Support for DAC from governments in the


form of research funding alongside tax incentives for businesses will both be needed to accelerate development and take-up. The US and UK are leading the commitment to R&D. In the US, the 45Q tax credits for businesses adopting CO2 removal have increased substantially from $50/t CO2 to $180/t CO2 (if CO2 is stored). When CO2 is passed on for re- use, for example, for synthetic aviation fuels, the tax credit has risen from $30/t CO2 to $60/t CO2.


There have been early-stage customers for


DAC among ‘name’ organisations. Microsoft, Stripe and Shopify are all considering DAC as part of their net-zero strategies. And again, this is an important stage in terms of encouraging development of new technologies and the scaling up of facilities. But the real value of DAC will


come from its widespread use, national networks of capture and re-use built on a foundation of commercial viability — in addition to ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles and goals. There needs to be full transparency over the management of CO2 across its


entire lifecycle, accompanied by a hard sense of business viability. At current demand levels, only around 10% of CO2 emitted globally can be re-used, meaning real potential for process industries in monetising CO2 as a product. New opportunities are emerging for CO2 re-use, for example in the concrete and cement industries, in petrochemicals in producing plastics, and most of all, in the vast market opening up for sustainable aviation fuels (which is expected to be worth $14 billion by 2030). We’re not there yet. As with so many high-


potential technologies, the benefits of DAC for the process sector are being held back by the limited nature of development and adoption. New technologies stay within academic institutions, at small pilot levels, and their full potential isn’t exploited; so costs stay high and business viability stays unproven. With the combination of increasing demands to decarbonise and the opening up of CO2 markets, now is the time for process industries to build a more positive cycle of DAC development and implementation.


Cranfield University www.cranfield.ac.uk www.drhanak.com


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