US launches $3.5 billion programme to speed development of up carbon removal tech

TheUSEnergy Department launched aprogramon Thursday to fund four large-scale projects across the country that can removecarbondioxide from the air, investing $3.5billionin a nascenttechnology the Biden administration says is necessary to meet a goal of achieving net zero emissions by mid century.

The agency released a formal notice saying it would fund the $3.5billionprogramcreated by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastucture Law that would create four regional direct air capture hubsto spur the widespread deployment of thetechnology andcarbondioxide transport and storage infrastructure.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report last month that said the world will need “carbon dioxide removal”technologies - ranging from planting trees that soakupcarbonto grow, to costlytechnologies to suckcarbondioxide directly from the air to meet global goals to curb climate change.

“The UN's latest climate report made clear that removing legacycarbonpollution 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.

Carbonremovaltechnology has gained major attention and investment in recent months. There are three major direct air capture projects underdevelopmentthat have emerged in North America and Europe but they are only suckingupsmall amounts of CO2 from the air currently.

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Earlier this year,technology firms Google, Shopify, Meta, and Stripe launched a $1billionfund that will buycarbonremovalcredits over the next decade as a way to incentivize rapid deployment of thetechnology.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk last year offered inventors $100 million in prize money to develop newcarbonremovaltechnologies.

The DOE said that by midcentury,carbonremovalwill need to be deployed at the gigaton scale, meaning it would need to be able to sequester the equivalent of emissions from approximately 250 million vehicles driven in one year.

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