Nature – Qiu et al. (2022): Environmental trade-offs of direct air capture technologies in climate change mitigation toward 2100
Yang Qiu, Patrick Lamers, Vassilis Daioglou, Noah McQueen, Harmen-Sytze de Boer, Mathijs Harmsen, Jennifer Wilcox, André Bardow & Sangwon Suh IN: Nat Commun 13, 3635 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31146-1
Direct air capture (DAC) is critical for achieving stringent climate targets, yet the environmental implications of its large-scale deployment have not been evaluated in this context. Performing a prospective life cycle assessment for two promising technologies in a series of climate change mitigation scenarios, the authors find that electricity sector decarbonization and DAC technology improvements are both indispensable to avoid environmental problem-shifting.