The US is set to cancel funding for two major direct-air capture plants

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/07/1125207/the-us-is-set-to-cancel-funding-for-two-major-direct-air-capture-plants/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement

by techreview

8 comments

  1. **From the article:**

    The Department of Energy appears poised to terminate funding for a pair of large carbon sucking factories that [were originally](https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/08/11/1077756/the-us-just-invested-more-than-1-billion-into-carbon-removal/) set to receive more than $1 billion in government grants, according to a department issued list of projects obtained by MIT Technology Review and circulating among federal agencies.

    The projects include the South Texas Direct Air Capture Hub, a facility that Occidental Petroleum’s 1PointFive subsidiary planned to develop in Kleberg County, Texas. The other is Project Cypress in Louisiana, a collaboration between Battelle, Climeworks and Heirloom.

    The list notes that around $50 million in funding has been terminated for both projects, the initial tranche of Department of Energy (DOE) funding for each development. Each was set to receive about $500 million, according to a DOE announcement last year. 

  2. I would have liked to have seen at least a brief discussion of direct air capture technology potential and issues. The Sustainable Production and Consumption May 2024 journal article “A comprehensive review of life cycle assessments of direct air capture and carbon dioxide storage” includes related information; [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550925000399](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550925000399)

    “While advancements in DACCS technology have been reported in the literature, the debates surrounding the practical promise versus hype of DACCS remain contentious. DAC has attracted considerable attention as a potential climate mitigation solution; however, questions remain regarding its economic feasibility and scalability. An inter-model analysis by Realmonte et al., 2019a, Realmonte et al., 2019b confirmed the potential of DAC to substantially reduce mitigation costs if rapidly scaled up to remove billions of tonnes of CO2 (approximately 1.5 Gt·y−1) annually by 2100. Yet, Chatterjee and Huang (2020) argued that this massively underestimates feasibility challenges around adsorbent production, energy demands, and financing at such vast scales – countering that transitioning to renewable energy alone is more viable and affordable than unproven DACCS technologies.Regarding cost, Fasihi et al. (2019) outlined levelized capture costs, ranging from $100 to $250 per tonne of CO2, while Breyer et al. (2020) predicted cost declines after 2040 due to technological advancements and growing acceptance. Larsen et al. (2019) reported that CO2-capture costs for a DAC plant with the capacity to capture a megaton of CO2 annually are within the range of $173–290/t for liquid-sorbent technology and $124–325/t for solid-sorbent technology. In comparison, the cost of CO2 capture from fossil fuel power plants ranges from $50–$90/t (Schmelz et al., 2020), indicating the DAC costs are currently higher but may become more economically viable with further advancements.”

  3. It’s not that trump supports Big Oil. he actually supports the pollution it creates. It’s perverse.

  4. Carbon capture is a stupid waste of money at this point. It’s as stupid as a smoker investing in cancer research so they can smoke two packs a day. Maybe after we can see a declining trajectory in carbon emissions would it make sense to shift investment in these projects. I do still support investment in scientific research on carbon capture as we’ll need it in the future.

  5. Go ask Google AI the number of nuclear power plants it would require to direct capture carbon from the air to remove all carbon in a year put into the air in a year.

Comments are closed.