When will direct air carbon capture tech cost <$50 (2020 USD) per ton of CO2?

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Many efforts to reduce the effects of climate change are focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the various sectors that contribute to them, for example electricity/heat production, agriculture, transportation, and industrial uses. In most of these sectors, there are "low-hanging fruit": certain emissions that can be removed with existing technology, sometimes even saving money in the process. For example, solar and wind energy are now often cheaper than coal, and electric cars can be cost-competitive with gasoline cars in some contexts. On the other hand, there are many processes which generate CO2 that do not currently viable zero-emissions replacements, such as steel/concrete production or passenger airlines.

One way to make progress on CO2 reductions in spite of this would be to directly capture CO2 from the air and store it, so that on balance, no additional CO2 is added to the atmosphere. Unfortunately, current projects from companies such as Carbon Engineering or Climeworks are typically at very small scales and quite expensive, on the order of $600 per metric ton.

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Many efforts to reduce the effects of climate change are focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the various sectors that contribute to them, for example electricity/heat production, agriculture, transportation, and industrial uses. In most...

Last updated: 2024-03-29
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Metaculus
Forecasts: 205

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