Lopez-Reyes et al. (2026): Decarbonizing desert greenhouse crop production with direct air capture–based CO₂ enrichment
Zulma Lopez-Reyes, Wesley Hopwood, Jonathan Jones, Rod Wing, Raffaella Sordella, Carlos Grande and Rebekah Waller, IN: npj Climate Action, https://doi.org/10.1038/s44264-026-00149-6
High-tech greenhouses in hot-desert climates deliver high yields with minimal water and land footprint but are constrained by costly, emissions-intensive carbon dioxide (CO₂) enrichment supplied via trucked liquid-CO₂. The authors evaluate two adsorption-based direct air capture (DAC) systems—temperature-vacuum-swing (TVSA) and moisture-swing (MSA)—as on-site enrichment alternatives, benchmarking against conventional liquid-CO₂ supply. Using integrated techno-economic and life-cycle assessment models, they show that DAC systems achieve comparable levelized costs and lower climate-change burdens for high-tech greenhouse cherry tomato and lettuce crop production systems by avoiding transport-related emissions.