Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage Market Scan
Overview of the emerging DACCS market and technologies, evaluating their potential for city climate action in Boston.
By Lucía Vilallonga and Cutler J. Cleveland
September 2022
Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) is a negative emissions technology that has garnered significant scientific, engineering, and commercial interest.
In this report, the Institute for Global Sustainability synthesizes scientific literature, industry reports, government policies, and news to assess the potential for DACCS as a compliance pathway in local emissions reduction ordinances and other regulations, for example by the City of Boston through the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance 2.0 (BERDO 2.0).
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Key Findings
BERDO 2.0 or any policy that contemplates DACCS as a compliance mechanism will benefit from the following best practices checklist:
- Transparent protocols for third-party verification and monitoring of storage and removal, through every step of the DACCS process (capture, transportation, and storage).
- Controls on carbon removal credit sellers, including some characterization of high vs. low-quality credits and an explanation of these categories, similar to renewable energy certificates.
- Complete lifecycle assessments of each DACCS process being used for pathway compliance to quantify realized negative emissions.
- Careful monitoring of the per-tonne avoided costs of DACCS in order to gauge when it may become financially attractive to building owners.
- Thorough consideration of the social and political challenges such that the deployment of DACCS infrastructure does not exacerbate existing energy, climate, and environmental inequities in vulnerable and marginalized communities.
- Recognition that DACCS should not be used in place of cost-effective emissions reduction methods such as energy efficiency and electrification, perhaps as part of the hardship clause in BERDO 2.0.