IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/engenv/v23y2012i2-3p319-328.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Carbon Dioxide Capture from Air: A Simple Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Brandani

    (Scottish Carbon Capture and Storage Centre, School of Engineering The University of Edinburgh, The King's Buildings, Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JL. UK)

Abstract

A simplified analysis is presented in order to compare direct capture of carbon dioxide from air, i.e. air capture, and capture from fossil fuelled power plants. For air capture the literature shows conflicting data on the estimates of the costs of the technology, which range from 30 US$/t CO 2 to $1000 US$/t CO 2 . This clearly creates uncertainty especially for those who have to implement long term policies to mitigate climate change. The aim of this contribution is not to assign a fixed cost to air capture, but to show that it is possible to make a common sense estimate of the ratios of cost and energy requirement of air capture compared to carbon capture from power plants. These ratios are at least 10 times for the cost and 3 to 4 times for the energy needed to produce a high purity carbon dioxide stream at atmospheric pressure.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Brandani, 2012. "Carbon Dioxide Capture from Air: A Simple Analysis," Energy & Environment, , vol. 23(2-3), pages 319-328, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:23:y:2012:i:2-3:p:319-328
    DOI: 10.1260/0958-305X.23.2-3.319
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1260/0958-305X.23.2-3.319
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1260/0958-305X.23.2-3.319?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Keith & Minh Ha-Duong & Joshua K. Stolaroff, 2006. "Climate strategy with CO2 capture from the air," Post-Print halshs-00003926, HAL.
    2. Daniel Sarewitz & Richard Nelson, 2008. "Three rules for technological fixes," Nature, Nature, vol. 456(7224), pages 871-872, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Santori, Giulio & Charalambous, Charithea & Ferrari, Maria-Chiara & Brandani, Stefano, 2018. "Adsorption artificial tree for atmospheric carbon dioxide capture, purification and compression," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1158-1168.
    2. Tobias Pröll & Florian Zerobin, 2019. "Biomass-based negative emission technology options with combined heat and power generation," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 24(7), pages 1307-1324, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Scott Barrett, 2009. "The Coming Global Climate-Technology Revolution," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 53-75, Spring.
    2. Timothy A. Fox, 2012. "Energy Innovation and Avoiding Policy Complexity: The Air Capture Approach," Energy & Environment, , vol. 23(6-7), pages 1075-1092, October.
    3. Wylie Carr & Christopher Preston & Laurie Yung & Bronislaw Szerszynski & David Keith & Ashley Mercer, 2013. "Public engagement on solar radiation management and why it needs to happen now," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 567-577, December.
    4. Azarabadi, Habib & Lackner, Klaus S., 2019. "A sorbent-focused techno-economic analysis of direct air capture," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 959-975.
    5. Benjamin Jones & Michael Keen & Jon Strand, 2013. "Fiscal implications of climate change," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(1), pages 29-70, February.
    6. Younes, George Abi & Ayoubi, Charles & Ballester, Omar & Cristelli, Gabriele & de Rassenfosse, Gaetan & Foray, Dominique & Gaule, Patrick & Pellegrino, Gabriele & van den Heuvel, Matthias & Webster, B, 2020. "COVID-19_Insights from Innovation Economists," SocArXiv b5zae, Center for Open Science.
      • Dominique Foray & Gaetan de Rassenfosse & George Abi Younes & Charles Ayoubi & Omar Ballester & Gabriele Cristelli & Matthias van den Heuvel & Ling Zhou & Gabriele Pellegrino & Patrick Gaulé & Elizab, 2020. "COVID-19: Insights from Innovation Economists," Working Papers 10, Chair of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy.
    7. Hanak, Dawid P. & Jenkins, Barrie G. & Kruger, Tim & Manovic, Vasilije, 2017. "High-efficiency negative-carbon emission power generation from integrated solid-oxide fuel cell and calciner," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 1189-1201.
    8. Nelson, John P., 2023. "Differential “progressibility” in human know-how: A conceptual overview," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(2).
    9. Heyen, Daniel, 2015. "Strategic Conflicts on the Horizon: R&D Incentives for Environmental Technologies," Working Papers 0584, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    10. Frédéric Babonneau & Ahmed Badran & Maroua Benlahrech & Alain Haurie & Maxime Schenckery & Marc Vielle, 2021. "Economic assessment of the development of CO2 direct reduction technologies in long-term climate strategies of the Gulf countries," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(3), pages 1-18, April.
    11. J. Pires & A. Gonçalves & F. Martins & M. Alvim-Ferraz & M. Simões, 2014. "Effect of light supply on CO 2 capture from atmosphere by Chlorella vulgaris and Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 19(7), pages 1109-1117, October.
    12. Moriarty, Patrick & Honnery, Damon, 2010. "A human needs approach to reducing atmospheric carbon," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 695-700, February.
    13. An, Keju & Farooqui, Azharuddin & McCoy, Sean T., 2022. "The impact of climate on solvent-based direct air capture systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 325(C).
    14. Graves, Christopher & Ebbesen, Sune D. & Mogensen, Mogens & Lackner, Klaus S., 2011. "Sustainable hydrocarbon fuels by recycling CO2 and H2O with renewable or nuclear energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-23, January.
    15. Matovic, Darko, 2011. "Biochar as a viable carbon sequestration option: Global and Canadian perspective," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 2011-2016.
    16. Lomax, Guy & Workman, Mark & Lenton, Timothy & Shah, Nilay, 2015. "Reframing the policy approach to greenhouse gas removal technologies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 125-136.
    17. Confraria, Hugo & Wang, Lili, 2020. "Medical research versus disease burden in Africa," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(3).
    18. Yu-Fu Chen & Michael Funke & Nicole Glanemann, 2011. "Time is Running Out: The 2°C Target and Optimal Climate Policies," CESifo Working Paper Series 3664, CESifo.
    19. Klaus Keller & Zili Yang & Matt Hall & David F. Bradford, 2003. "Carbon Dioxide Sequestrian: When And How Much?," Working Papers 108, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    20. Francesco de Cunzo & Alberto Petri & Andrea Zaccaria & Angelica Sbardella, 2022. "The trickle down from environmental innovation to productive complexity," Papers 2206.07537, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Air capture; Carbon capture;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:23:y:2012:i:2-3:p:319-328. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.