OCED Seeks Public Input on Approaches to Catalyze Direct Air Capture Technology Commercialization

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) today issued a Request for Information (RFI) to obtain public input regarding additional approaches that current and future DOE programs could implement to help direct air capture (DAC) technology developers address challenges in raising project investment capital and achieving sustained facility operations. This RFI will help inform the Regional DAC Hubs program, which supports an ecosystem of projects that aim to remove harmful legacy carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere and accelerate efforts to meet President Biden and Vice President Harris’ ambitious clean energy and climate goals.

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The goal of this RFI is to understand how federal funding may complement existing DOE funding mechanisms supporting development, construction, and partial operations funding for first-of-a-kind (FOAK) commercial demonstrations and supplement other government incentives (e.g., 45Q tax credit) in support of direct air capture technology commercialization and spurring the development of the Regional DAC Hubs. DAC is a process that separates CO₂ from the air, helping to reduce legacy CO₂ in the atmosphere. The separated CO₂ can then be safely and permanently stored deep underground or converted into useful carbon-containing products like concrete, preventing its release back into the atmosphere. Widespread deployment of DAC and other innovative technologies that capture emissions are key to combatting the climate crisis and reinforcing America’s global competitiveness in the zero-carbon economy of the future. DOE estimates that reaching the Biden-Harris Administration’s plan for a net-zero carbon emissions economy will require that between 400 million and 1.8 billion metric tons of CO₂ be removed from the atmosphere and captured from emissions sources annually by 2050.

In August 2023, under the Regional DAC Hubs program’s first funding opportunity, DOE announced the selection of 21 projects for award negotiations, including two Regional DAC Hubs in Louisiana and Texas. The additional 19 projects, managed by DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), received funding for earlier stages of project development, including feasibility assessments and front-end engineering and design studies. In September 2024, OCED released a Notice of Intent on the next round of anticipated funding for the Regional DAC Hubs program, expected in winter 2024.

Responses to the RFI are due by December 17, 2024, at 5 p.m., ET. OCED may publicly share a summary of the responses in written, webinar, or other formats. View the RFI here.