WASHINGTON DC – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today issued a Notice of Intent (NOI) to fund the $3.5 billion Bipartisan Pollution Capture and Store Infrastructure Act program by carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the air. The Regional Direct Air Capture Centers program will support four large-scale regional Direct Air Capture Centers that each include a network of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) projects to help address the impacts of climate change, create well-paying jobs and prioritize community engagement. and environmental justice. In addition to efforts to deeply decarbonize the economy through methods such as clean energy, efficiency and industrial innovation, the widespread deployment of direct air capture technologies and transport and CO2 storage plays an important role in achieving President Biden’s goal of achieving a just transition. towards a net zero economy by 2050.

“The latest UN climate report has made it clear that removing legacy carbon pollution from the air through direct air capture and safe storage is a critical weapon in our fight. against the climate crisis,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “President Biden’s bipartisan Infrastructure Act funds new technologies that will not only make our zero-carbon future a reality, but help position the United States as a net zero leader while creating well-paying jobs for a workforce. transitioning to clean energy.”

Direct air capture is a process that separates CO2 from ambient air. The separated CO2 is then permanently stored at depth or converted for use in long-lived products such as concrete that prevent its release into the atmosphere. This differs from carbon capture systems in industrial facilities and power plants which prevent additional emissions from being released into the air in the first place.

By mid-century, CDR should be deployed at the gigatonne scale. To put that into perspective, one gigatonne of CO2 sequestered below the surface is equivalent to the annual emissions of the US light-duty vehicle fleet, or the equivalent of approximately 250 million vehicles driven in one year.

Each of the projects selected for the Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program will demonstrate the delivery and storage or end use of removed atmospheric carbon. The hubs will have the capacity to capture and then permanently store at least one million metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year, either from a single unit or from several interconnected units.

In developing and deploying the four regional Direct Air Capture Centers, DOE will also emphasize environmental justice, community engagement, consent-based settlement, equity, and community development. labor, as well as domestic supply chains and manufacturing.

For more information, read the Notice of Intent here.

To learn more about DAC and other CDR approaches, please also join us for the Carbon Negative Shot virtual summit on July 20-21, 2022. The summit will bring together a diverse set of perspectives to discuss technology and infrastructure development and deployment. CDR in the United States, as well as exploring the principles of justice and equity and workforce development opportunities.

The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) funds research, development, demonstration, and deployment projects to decarbonize electricity generation and industrial production to remove carbon dioxide. carbon from the atmosphere and to mitigate the environmental impacts of the production and use of fossil fuels. Priority areas of technology work include point carbon capture, carbon dioxide conversion, carbon dioxide removal, reliable carbon storage and transport, hydrogen production with carbon management, methane emissions and the production of critical minerals. For more information, visit the FECM website, Register for FECM news and visit the National Energy Technology Laboratory website.