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Listen to the recorded session, Direct Air Capture: The Goose that Lays the Golden Egg? w/ DAC Coalition, Skytree, Circular Carbon Network, Carbon Removal Alliance and Noya here.
The Utilisation Opportunity
On stage quote: The European perspective on this is that I think policymakers in the EU are on the way to merge voluntary carbon markets and compliance such as ETS, which is sort of a well working system of carrot and stick and removal projects often taking years to develop - the permitting, the land, the offtake agreements and all of that, while there is a lot of opportunity in utilisation. Utilisation markets can be fulfilled short term and can pump up the volume of systems to be deployed by DAC companies. [00:04:57 - 00:05:32 on session recording. Listen here]
Follow up response: The reason why I brought this forward is that there is a lot of talk about price per tonne and price per tonne has to do with energy consumption and with the cost of building and maintaining machines. And as we have seen in any industry, industry maturity will solve that. How do you get to industry maturity? The answer is by deployments, by volume. How can you get volume while we are waiting to develop all these removal and storage sites, get them financed and all the issues that were discussed at the conference? The answer to that is we need more finance. We need more bias and ok that is true, but in the meantime, let's scale up this industry by deploying the systems at locations where CO2 is needed for use because that's an immediate and immense revenue opportunity that will allow the DAC industry to mature so that the cost of DAC for both utilisation and carbon removal and storage go down.
Building DAC Hubs Alongside CCS
On stage quote: When you look at the large emitters, they capture their CO2 and often put it to use. The trend is towards sequestration, to storage, so they have or they are building infrastructures by building storage sites. They have industrial sites. If they have waste heat in their industrial process that can be used as thermal energy to power that. And they have capital so wouldn’t it make sense, if for instance, just for monetary reasons, large emitters would build DAC hubs alongside their CCS infrastructures. For me, that makes a lot of sense. [00:13:21 - 00:14:01 Listen here]
Follow up response: Empty oil and gas fields have more storage capacity available than we need to solve the climate crisis. Next to building carbon removal sites in nature, cutting down trees, getting permits, involving local communities and all of that, we could just use the industrial sites that are there with the infrastructure of piping, empty oil wells and capital and expertise that comes with it. The question then is why don't we work with the large emitters to help them to solve their historic emissions and use their infrastructure? This way things move faster. We don't have to contend with the financing issue.
Partnering with the Largest Emitters
On stage quote: A lot of the solutions could be found there (by partnering with the largest emitters).They also have the expertise to help with storage. So in my discussions, there is appetite from the individuals but the companies don’t yet move so I think we need public opinion or policy makers to stimulate this as they have a lot of capacity and all the elements in place, including the financing. [00:14:08 - 00:14:32 Listen here]
Follow up response: My message to the climate community, whether it's technology providers or influencers or anybody who plays a role in the climate issue or solutions, my call to action would be to stop throwing hand grenades at large emitters. That's not how we solve the problem. Start collaborating. Reach out. There are also good people working at oil companies. They personally didn't pump up 100 years of oil. Plus they have all the elements we need to solve the problem. Let's not play the game of ‘I’m a better person because I hate oil companies more than you’. That's pointless. Let's solve the problem. And we can solve the problem by collaborating with the largest emitters to help them neutralise their future emissions, which is already happening big time, by stimulating them to stop putting their captured CO2 to use, but instead start sequestering it permanently and then seducing them to add negative emissions to their carbon storage infrastructure. In that way, it goes faster. The carbon reduction goes faster. It's less dependent on the buyers of carbon credits, which is what the whole conference was about. One of the core objectives of the conference was how can we find more buyers? My response to that is you reduce your dependency on buyers if you work with large emitters as the capital is there. It would come from them. So let's let the emitters pay for carbon removal. They should be willing to and they are capable of it.
A Postponed and Amplified Emission
On stage quote: The fascinating thing is if you talk to people about point source capture, so here’s a large emitter, ‘no we’re not blowing our C02 back in the air, we’re capturing it and we’re putting it to use to stimulate food production’ but if think of it, the process of capturing the C02 from the exhaust, then taking the toxic gases out, then liquifying it, then transporting it to where it’s needed is actually adding emissions and then through food or your champagne or whatever the C02 comes into the atmosphere so it's a postponed and amplified emission. [00:20:50 - 00:21:26 Listen here]
Follow up response: It's great to start capturing CO2 instead of blowing it in the atmosphere. However, we have to transition from putting that captured CO2 to use to permanent storage. That is the only way that we can prevent these emissions from continuing through food production and the other utilisation use cases. Instead, CO2 supply chains currently coming from fossil fuels have to be replaced by circular CO2 sources such as atmospheric, oceanic or biogenic sources. This way the industry that needs CO2 will continue to get CO2, but not from a fossil fuel source, because that CO2 needs to go back underground. So it's a CO2 universe that we need to look at and not CO2 from fossil fuels and the atmosphere separately. Let's capture fossil fuel CO2 and store it underground, neutralising future emissions. And capture atmospheric CO2 to create negative emissions and sell carbon credits. We need to connect with the emitters, with the users of CO2 and the removal/storage CO2 community. The objective here is to neutralise future emissions and solve historic emissions.
Systematic Change
On stage quote: I am just fascinated by the isolation of the different lenses and the lack of climate awareness when we talk about emissions. In my perspective, it’s a C02 universe that needs to be seen as a system and needs to be changed in a systematic way. [00:22:19 - 00:22:33 Listen here]
Follow up response: So industry captures CO2 instead of blowing it in the air. Instead of putting it to use, there should be a transition to storage. The gap in the supply chain to the businesses that need CO2 needs to be filled in by circular sources such as biogenic or direct air capture. Direct air capture, you can put where you need CO2. So by definition you avoid transportation. And then if and when these large emitters move from utilisation to storage, they have piping infrastructure, storage sites, capital, expertise, and industrial sites. And if we add direct air capture to those infrastructures, then we solve the historic emissions, at the scene of the crime.
See the world through a carbon lens. Click here to read more quotebacks from Carbon Unbound East Coast 2024.
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