Energy Dept. to Spend $1.2 Billion to Try to Vacuum CO2 from Sky
The Department of Energy is spending $1.2 billion on experimental technology that tries to vacuum greenhouse gasses out of the sky, despite many scientists’ concerns over its efficacy and potential, according to The New York Times.
In announcing the funding, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm described two large projects that would use a nascent technology known as direct air capture to vacuum carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
There are 30 such facilities around the world but these two in Texas and Louisiana would be the largest.
The recipients of the funding are Occidental Petroleum, an oil company in Kleberg County, Texas, and Battelle, a non-profit in Calcasieu, Louisiana. Both are equally splitting the cost of building the facilities with the federal government.
The Biden administration is touting this massive investment as another part of its fight against climate change. Some scientists, however, remain skeptical of the technology’s potential. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama tried funding this technology with investments of $1 billion, only for the project to be shut down because it couldn’t be used on a commercial scale.
Even climate activists like former Vice President Al Gore have criticized this technology, noting that it is incredibly expensive and uses “so much energy that it would make more sense to prevent carbon emissions in the first place rather than try to clean them up after the fact,” The Times reported.
Unfortunately, more funding for this highly experimental technology may be on the way. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act set aside $3.5 billion for constructing four plants like these, meaning there will soon be another expenditure of about $2.3 billion on two more facilities.
This is only a small part of the $370 billion the Biden administration has spent to fight climate change, though The Times argues all this funding will still not be enough to reach the goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
While some may reasonably argue the government has a role to play in the fight against climate change, shoveling billions out the door on untested technology only to still fall short of meaningful change is wasteful and irresponsible.
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