Fig. 6: Net CO2 removal and energy use.
From: Emergency deployment of direct air capture as a response to the climate crisis
Shown are the subset of scenarios with electricity supplies based on gas and renewables (with and without storage), which we find to be the most plausible; excluded are hydropower (significant challenges to scalability) and SMRs and CCGT with CCS (costly and unproven). The year shown is 2075, the program’s 50th year. Configurations are denoted by markers, with like-configurations (i.e., DAC processes with common heat sources) connected with lines to aid visualization. For scenarios with energy storage, only the best-performing (lowest 2075 LCOR) scenarios are reported. Historical 2017 energy use (electricity plus gas) is marked along the x-axis for reference. Funding is from the club of democracies. Electricity labels are consistent with Fig. 5. (For results over 2050–2100 see Supplementary Fig. 14. For disaggregation of energy use by electricity and gas see Supplementary Fig. 15.).
