Big Oil Backs Israeli Startup that Sucks CO2 from the Atmosphere

by Will Mathis (Bloomberg) RepAir aims to cut the amount of energy needed for direct air capture. -- Israeli startup RepAir raised $10 million to help scale up its technology to suck planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the air.

RepAir is one of a handful of companies looking to build technology that performs a process known as direct air capture, which takes CO2 from the air and stores it safely out of the atmosphere. It’s potentially a key tool for getting rid of excess greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming — alongside the much larger effort to prevent them from ever entering the atmosphere in the first place. READ MORE

Excerpt from Gizmodo: Direct air capture, or the process of removing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, may sound like the silver bullet for climate solutions. But the technology is monstrously expensive, thanks in part to the large amount of energy needed to separate carbon dioxide from the air. Climeworks, which operates the world’s largest direct air capture plant, currently

According to the International Energy Agency, there are currently 18 direct air capture plants operating around the world; the Biden administration earlier this year earmarked $3.5 billion to fund four direct air capture plants across the U.S. Direct air capture proponents have set an ambitious goal of eventually bringing the price of capturing a ton of carbon to $100/ton, which they claim can be done by aggressively scaling up the technology.

RepAir says that its proprietary technology will make it stand out from the pack by creating a form of direct air capture that is less energy-intensive than its competitors. The company has a working “shoebox”-size prototype, Bloomberg reported, that it’s using as a proof-of-concept to raise money. In the next six months, the company aims to build a larger prototype that can capture 1 metric ton of CO2 each year; eventually, it plans to build another model to capture 200 tons a year. With this technology, which the company claims is 70% more energy efficient than other forms of direct air capture, RepAir says it could eventually drive costs down to an astronomically low $70/ton.
lot
READ MORE ($1,050) per ton. ... ... Experts have estimated that capturing just 1 gigatonne of CO2—on the lower end of ranges of necessary carbon capture set out by the IPCC—using direct air capture would gobble up 10% of the world’s total electricity consumption. It’s clear we’re going to have to make the process a more efficient. ... Oil companies investing in direct air capture companies is nothing new. After all, they have a vested interest in developing technologies that will deflect attention from the fact that they are continuing to explore new fossil fuel resources, even though it’s imperative that we . It’s far easier to push for a future with a lot of technology—even if that future isn’t actually feasible and doesn’t take advantage of the tools we have at our disposal now.

Excerpt from Sky News: The machine, developed by Mission Zero Technologies in partnership with the University of Sheffield, will run on solar power to recover 50 tonnes of CO2 from the air per year and turn it into Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

But some say it's not a very efficient way of removing greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere.

Dr Steve Smith, executive director of Oxford Net Zero, noted how these projects are "really small and really expensive", adding that there are more energy-efficient alternatives to cut down greenhouse emissions such as switching to renewables. READ MORE