President Biden has announced funding of up to $1.2 Billion for carbon direct air capture (DAC) prototypes in Texas and Louisiana.

The projects, the first of this scale in the US, represent the initial selections from the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded Regional Direct Air Capture (DAC) Hubs programme, which aims to kickstart a nationwide network of large-scale carbon removal sites to address legacy carbon dioxide pollution and complement rapid emissions reductions. The two projects are expected to remove more than 2 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year from the atmosphere.

Project Cypress, in coordination with Climeworks and Heirloom Carbon Technologies, aims to capture more than 1 million metric tonnes of existing CO2 from the atmosphere each year and store it permanently deep underground.

South Texas DAC Hub is a development of 1PointFive, a subsidiary of Occidental, and its partners, Carbon Engineering. and Worley, will remove up to 1 million metric tonnes of CO2 annually with an associated saline geologic CO2 storage site.

If the funding is fully realised, it will represent the world’s largest investment in engineered carbon removal so far and each Hub will eventually remove more than 250 times more carbon dioxide than the largest DAC facility currently operating. Their development will help inform future public and private sector investments and jumpstart a new industry addressing the climate crisis on a global scale and accelerating efforts to meet the President’s goal of a net-zero economy by 2050.

“Cutting back on our carbon emissions alone won’t reverse the growing impacts of climate change; we also need to remove the CO2 that we’ve already put in the atmosphere, which nearly every climate model makes clear is essential to achieving a net-zero global economy by 2050,” said US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M Granholm. “With this once-in-a-generation investment made possible by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, DOE is laying the foundation for a direct air capture industry crucial to tackling climate change, transforming local economies and delivering healthier communities along the way.”

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