Potentials of Direct Air Capture and Storage in a Greenhouse Gas-Neutral European Energy System

Abstract

Negative emission technologies will likely be needed to achieve the European Commission's goal of greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050. This article investigates the potential of reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere via the DACCS pathway, i.e. to capture CO 2 from the ambient air and permanently store it in geological formations. Since the capture of CO 2 from ambient air is energy intensive, this study particularly models the integration of DACCS plants into a greenhouse gas-neutral European energy system. The model results show that DACCS in Europe 2050 could cost between 160 €/t CO2 and 270 €/t CO2 with very conservative techno-economic assumptions and between 60 €/t CO2 and 140 €/t CO2 using more progressive parameters. Annually capturing 5% of Europe's 1990 emissions with a fully electric DACCS system would increase the capacities of onshore wind by 80 to 119 GW el and PV by 85 to 126 GW el . In the model results Sweden, the Iberian Peninsula, Norway, and Finland incorporate the most important characteristics for a successful deployment of capturing and storing CO 2 from ambient air: Sufficiently large geological CO 2 storage capacities and relatively low-cost, vacant renewable power generation potentials. The low DACCS costs determined could minimize the cost of combating climate change and could prevent the implementation of more expensive mitigation strategies. On the other hand, a DACCS-based climate protection strategy is fraught with the risks of CO 2 storage leaks, acceptance problems for the additionally required expansion of renewable energies, and too early exhaustion of global CO 2 storage potentials.

Keywords: Direct air capture and storage (DACCS), Carbon dioxide removal (CDR), Negative emission technology (NET), Energy system modeling, GHG neutrality