Biden greenlights $1.2 billion for two carbon-capture tech firms

How machines capture and store carbon

Atmospheric carbon-removal machines are known as DAC machines. They’re essentially giant vacuums designed to suck carbon out of ambient air, getting their acronym from the process they complete, known as ‘direct air capture.’

Following the retrieval of atmospheric carbon, companies say they will be able to store it, but have yet to outline what will be done with it. That said, the US Department of Energy assures it will not use the captured CO2 for enhanced oil recovery – a process where CO2 is injected into the ground to release more oil.

US officials have continued to frame the deployment of this carbon-sucking technology as a helpful climate crisis mitigation strategy. They say it will aid them in reducing overall emissions while the government works toward expanding national power grids, adopting cleaner sources of energy, and phasing out fossil fuels.

At present, at least thirty carbon-capture plants have been commissioned globally, but it’s been reported that those in Texas and Louisiana will be the largest facilities in the world once completed.

Still, not everyone is sold on DAC technology or the intentions of those advocating for it.

What’s the problem with tech-assisted carbon capture?

Firstly, DAC machines are extremely costly and energy-intensive.

It’s only natural to question how the Louisiana and Texas hubs will power their machines, as it would make zero sense for carbon removal technology to contribute additional greenhouse gas emissions to our atmosphere.

Battelle, the company responsible for the Louisiana project, has said its hub will be powered with clean energy supplied by the state’s local utility. It plans to power its facility with renewable energy in the future, but hasn’t set a timeline for this.

It’s also worth noting that the carbon-capture industry itself is quite new. Climateworks is currently one of the leading enterprises operating DAC technologies, with its largest plant located in Iceland.

But this hub only captures 4,000 tons of CO2 per year – the equivalent annual emissions produced by 800 non-electric cars. In the grand scheme of things, the capability of the Iceland plant’s carbon-removal technology amounts to only a few seconds of humanity’s emissions.

Hubs in the US say they are confident that the investment from the Biden Administration will allow them to exceed that. They each anticipate having the capability to draw and store 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

That might sound great, but bear in mind that the US emitted 5 billion metric tons of CO2 in 2022.

‘If we deploy [DAC] at scale, this technology can help us make serious headway toward our net-zero emissions goals while we are still focused on deploying, deploying, deploying more clean energy at the same time,’ said Jennifer Granholm, the US secretary of energy.

While it’s true that climate scientists say preventing global heating of 1.5C will require the use of DAC and other forms of carbon dioxide removal in the coming decades, reducing overall fossil fuel emissions is by far the most effective way to do so.

Digging a bit deeper, you may see why it seems that deploying carbon capture technology has taken precedence over this superior and simple solution.

The tech is backed by fossil fuel giants

Of course, it is.

Major oil and gas companies were key lobbyists for including direct air capture investments in US law. Their belief is that humans can continue to burn fossil fuels until we run out of supplies, as long as we clean up some of the emissions as we go.

To most climate scientists and environmentalists, this sounds like someone saying, ‘You can eat fast food for every meal for the rest of your life, as long as you work out three days a week!’

Despite the confidence of those building carbon-removal hubs, numerous studies have shown that government subsidies will not be sufficient to achieve Biden’s target to slice America’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. It also does not present a clear-cut plan for his plan to halt them altogether by 2050.

Former Vice President Al Gore heavily criticised the use of direct air capture technology in a recent TED Talk. He called it a ‘moral hazard’ which gives fossil fuel companies a ‘useful excuse’ to never stop the production of oil and gas.

He noted that the cost of carbon removal technology is so high and energy-intensive that it would be far more sensible to prevent such emissions in the first place. To critiques of that nature, oil and gas companies urge that the costs of carbon capture technology will drop in coming years as the process becomes more efficient.

Most people would agree that government investments should prioritise building greener infrastructure, such as expanding the country’s electrical grid and constructing solar or wind power plants, rather than continuing business as usual in hopes that carbon capture can save us.

Considering all of these caveats: how DAC machines will be powered, who is advocating for the construction of the hubs that run them, and the fact that they’ll only capture a tiny fraction of the US’s annual emissions – environmentalists and climate scientists have a right to be worried that business as usual is set to continue.