The US Department of Energy has launched a programme that aims to reverse the effects of climate change through carbon removal initiatives. The programme has $3.5bn in funding for four large-scale carbon removal projects. The pledge is part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Spread across the US four regional air capture hubs will be set up to help speed up the deployment of technology needed to capture, transport and store carbon dioxide.
Carbon removal technology is nascent, but the Biden administration has described the technology as vital if the US is to reach their goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Currently all carbon capture facilities worldwide have the capability of capturing 0.01 million metric tons of CO2
“The UN’s latest climate report made clear that removing legacy carbon pollution from the air through direct air capture and safely storing it is an essential weapon in our fight against the climate crisis,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
Private companies have also been involved in plans from carbon capture. At the start of 2022 Google, Shopify, Meta and Stripe announced a $1bn (£800m) fund that will pay for carbon removal credits in an attempt to financially incentivise the development and deployment of the technology.
Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, has also made his own offer of $100m (£80m) as prize to whoever comes up with the best carbon removal technology.
While some have proposed wide scale tree planting as a solution for removing carbon from the atmosphere, the scale of number of trees required along with the water and land they would need means that tree planting is not a viable solution on its own.
The US Department of Energy estimates that by 2050 carbon removal will need to be deployed at the gigaton scale, which would be equivalent to removing the emissions 250 million vehicles each year.
Efforts and investment into direct air carbon capture have been growing over recent years. There are three major carbon capture projects current under development in Europe and North America, although these remain in early stages.
