Pulling Carbon Dioxide from the Air? Why aren’t we there yet?

By Celeste Carrasco

We already know that the rise of carbon dioxide levels in the earth has led to the world's increase in temperatures. As we release more particulate matter, or particle pollution, the atmosphere becomes more and more filled with these gasses which prevents incoming heat from the sun from leaving the earth. In other words, due to the exorbitant amount of carbon dioxide that humans have been releasing into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Age, we have created a blanket around the earth that has just become better and better at keeping heat in. As a result, there are new alarming changes in normal world cycles. According to David Crisp of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, “changes in precipitation patterns, in where and how plants grow, in sea and land ice, in entire ecosystems like tropical rain forests… ” just show how much 7.7 billion people impact the planet. As these patterns are more and more disrupted from human activity, natural disasters will just become increasingly more intense.

So if CO2 is one of the major drivers of climate change, why don’t we just remove it right out of the air? Why don’t we just try to do what plants do? There are, in fact, some efforts around the world to do just that. Switzerland and Canada have companies that are working on direct air capture (DAC) technologies, and engineers around the world, such at MIT, are developing other methods to separate CO2 from other gasses in the atmosphere. Their methods consist of using liquids or solids that can  absorb CO2 as air is taken in, or using metals which CO2 sticks to. 

Now, if we have the means, why haven't these technologies been mass produced? One of the problems is that running DAC plants is, as of now, expensive. From running the systems that would handle storing the CO2 to the amount of space the plants require, as well as the source of energy from which the plants are running. Installing these DAC plants around the world would cost trillions of dollars, so efforts are instead being directed towards finding methods that can clean the air but are cost effective at the same time. Another problem is that some of these DAC methods require large amounts of energy to function, so these plants may ironically have to burn fossil fuels just to take it right out.

Despite these shortcomings, DAC technologies could be placed near sources of CO2 emissions to remove the gas right when it is emitted so it can be stored and used later in other applications such as carbonizing drinks or purifying water.