Optimising direct air capture technologies for better environmental and social outcomes
Image: Shutterstock
Project duration: July 2023–June 2026
Project lead
Dr Kathryn Emmerson
Team
Ashok Luhar, Paul Feron and Aaron Thornton.
Opportunity
Direct air capture (DAC) technologies that remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere are seen as an essential tool in the emissions reduction portfolio if Australia is to meet its climate obligations under the Paris Agreement (2015).
Combined with permanent storage of CO2, DAC technologies could make a profound contribution to reaching net-zero emissions. To realise this value, the technology must be deployed sustainably, and with full community consultation and acceptance.
Ideally, the design of DAC systems employs a multi-criteria approach, with a holistic balance between capture process performance, water and energy consumption, size and land area requirements, integration with renewable energy, and environmental considerations such atmospheric emissions and local footprint. This requires multi-disciplinary research that connects the individual DAC technology designs and their performance characteristics with the broader environmental impacts when deployed at scale. Currently, however, a methodology for environmental design optimisation of DAC systems is lacking. Closing this knowledge gap would provide science-based insights for design requirements to minimise potential environmental and social impacts, reduce capture costs, and inform standards for regulating DAC technology.
Goal
Currently, DAC plants are small, prototype operations but, as they are scaled up for commercial deployment, it will be necessary to address a number of challenges including engineering problems, and environmental and social impacts.
How to integrate the interdependencies of the complex flow, dispersion and chemical processes that occur at a diverse range of spatial scales (i.e., from the DAC system scale to, say, urban scale) is a big challenge but one we’ll overcome using different modelling techniques to create an optimisation framework.
DAC technologies also currently have no social licence to operate so addressing environmental and public concerns raised by stakeholders, regulators and the local community is essential in realising DAC as a valid, large-scale negative-emissions technology. Providing a research basis for design and deployment of DAC units will help to overcome concerns, and raise public awareness and confidence in the technology.
Barriers
Currently, DAC plants are small, prototype operations but, as they are scaled up for commercial deployment, it will be necessary to address a number of challenges including engineering problems, and environmental and social impacts.
How to integrate the interdependencies of the complex flow, dispersion and chemical processes that occur at a diverse range of spatial scales (i.e., from the DAC system scale to, say, urban scale) is a big challenge but one we’ll overcome using different modelling techniques to create an optimisation framework. DAC technologies also currently have no social licence to operate so addressing environmental and public concerns raised by stakeholders, regulators and the local community is essential in realising DAC as a valid, large-scale negative-emissions technology. Providing a research basis for design and deployment of DAC units will help to overcome concerns, and raise public awareness and confidence in the technology.
References
Climeworks (2022). https://climeworks.com
Carbon Engineering (2023). https://carbonengineering.com/our-technology/