The cost of direct air capture and storage can be reduced via strategic deployment but is unlikely to fall below stated cost targets

TLDR

Carbon dioxide removal is essential to mitigate climate change by addressing hard‑to‑abate sectors and historical emissions, yet the economic viability of direct air capture and storage remains uncertain. The study uses a bottom‑up engineering‑economic model and top‑down learning projections to estimate plant‑level cost trajectories for four DACS technologies. The authors model cost trajectories with a bottom‑up framework and assess that project‑catered policy support is essential to create market opportunities, accelerate scale‑up, and further reduce costs. The analysis shows that costs could plateau by 2050 at $100–600 t‑CO₂⁻¹ through aggressive deployment, yet still exceed optimistic national targets, and that strategic deployment coupled with strong policies is needed to minimize costs and maximize climate impact.

Abstract

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is necessary to minimize the impact of climate change by tackling hard-to-abate sectors and historical emissions. Direct air capture and storage (DACS) is an important CDR technology, but it remains unclear when and how DACS can be economically viable. Here, we use a bottom-up engineering-economic model together with top-down technological learning projections to calculate plant-level cost trajectories for four DACS technologies. Our analysis demonstrates that the costs of these technologies can plateau by 2050 at around $100-600 t-CO2-1 mainly via capital cost reduction through aggressive deployment, but still exceed the optimistic targets defined by countries such as the US (i.e., $100 t-CO2-1). A further analysis of existing policy mechanisms indicates that strong, project-catered policy support will be required to create market opportunities, accelerate DACS scale-up and lower the costs further. Our work suggests that strategic DACS deployment and operation must be coupled with strong policies to minimise the cost of DACS and maximise the opportunity to make a planet-scale climate impact.