An Open Letter in Support of Direct Air Capture
Climeworks is an early innovator in the Direct Air Capture of CO₂ industry and has been the subject of criticism due to the reported poor performance of its system in Iceland (Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions). That criticism has expanded to infer that the DAC industry is not viable.
We challenge this conclusion.
Consider the innovation cycle in wind turbines and solar PV required to bring these technologies from invention to the point that they are economic and widely adopted. The DAC industry is on a similar journey.
Climeworks has been the pioneer that others in the DAC industry have watched closely and we have all learned from their deployment innovation cycles.
The innovation experience of the NEG8 Carbon team is a case in point.
We started in 2014 as a research project in an Irish University and began our commercialisation in 2021. We have invented new technologies every year which have helped bring down the power consumption and cost of our DAC technology to the current level of 400 kWh/tCO2 with waste heat and 1400 kWh/tCO2 without. We can see a pathway to sub 400 kWh/tCO2 and this performance will improve in the coming years as we continue innovating.
DAC is the only solution that could be deployed with some urgency to remove significant levels of accumulated as well as hard-to-abate CO₂ emissions from the atmosphere, currently standing at 431 ppm.
At today’s increasing rate of accumulation of greater than 3 ppm/year, this will raise global temperatures by at least another 1 degree in 30 years, reaching temperatures in excess of 2.5 degrees above the much vaunted 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
What is the solution to this? From our perspective DAC is the primary technology to achieve this. And, in this regard, DAC is most definitely not an excuse for the fossil fuel industry to continue with business-as-usual.
DAC is essential to help Industry mitigate hard-to-abate emissions and reduce accumulated CO₂ in the atmosphere. It is a young industry and every year will bring innovation resulting in simpler, cheaper and more effective technologies.
Another consideration is that the social cost of not addressing the CO₂ in the atmosphere will be more than the cost of reducing it. Maximilian Kotze of the Potsdam Institute led a study that found climate damage costs by 2050 will be six times larger than the cost of reducing carbon emissions. (See: Direct Air Capture Cost Compared to Cost of Inaction on Climate Change)
It is time now to invest in the DAC industry to enable it continue to innovate and deploy large scale solutions to the challenge of Global Warming.
Signed on behalf of NEG8 Carbon
Ray Naughton (Managing Director)
Prof Don MacElroy (Director of Technology)
Dr John Breen (Chief Technology Officer)
For more, see:
- How Does Direct Air Capture Work?
- Is DAC Viable?
- Benefits of Direct Air Capture
- CO₂ Utilization
- NEG8 Carbon’s MD on Carbon Capture and Building for the Next Generation