Direct air capture (DAC) deployment: National context cannot be neglected. A case study applied to Norway

Abstract

DAC deployment is still an open question. Recent publications focused on energy consumption and the relationship between the cost of captured CO2 and operating conditions. These works addressed a preliminary assessment of the best locations but neglected the importance of the local context to succeed in implementing DAC in a specific country. Certainly, levelized costs provide a pointer of the costs but do not point out the impact on the natural resources to be allocated (land use and energy) or if the energy consumption outweighs the environmental benefit. Furthermore, it does not consider if it clashes with planned national strategies. This article aims at predicting the impact of DAC facilities deployment in the Norwegian context by taking advantage of international reports by independent agencies. The estimates are just preliminary but offer an initial rough estimate of Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies deployment at a national level taking the local resource consumption into account.