DAC or Direct Carbon Capture technology is making lots of headlines these days, especially after the latest IPCC report talked about the need of carbon sequestration. A new study on the process of carbon capture however shows that it is way too costly to be feasible.
In 2020, the world used 462 exajoules (that is 462 1018 joules) of energy from fossil fuels, which resulted in 32 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions. Capturing that carbon dioxide through DAC would require 448 exajoules, according to calculations by Australian company Keynumbers.
According to estimates, trees, soil, oceans etc absorb half of the global carbon dioxide emissions every year, for remaining CO2 to be extracted through DAC it would still need 142 exajoules of energy, which is almost double the global electricity production.
“The world would need just as much energy to clean up the energy it made a mess with in the first place,” said Keynumbers founder John Poljak. “Not quite what the circular economy had in mind.”
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Technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous master, it was rightly said. Electronic devices have grown into an inevitable part of our daily lives.
