One of the most exciting aspects about the current state of CDR is the opportunity to witness projects as they come online. It’s something I’ve heard from many stakeholders as a necessary step to believe that CDR is here and possible, particularly environmental justice (EJ) advocates with whom I spend most of my time. Touch, sight, and sound are powerful senses, and they play an essential role in informing someone’s opinion, particularly for new technologies. Fostering a direct line between the developers of these nascent technologies and nearby communities is incredibly important to shaping strong policies, safeguards, and investments for CDR scale-up. With the importance of these conversations in mind, Carbon180 spent two days in community with EJ and community-based organizations, Tribal leaders, local labor, and industry in California to experience direct air capture (DAC) in person.
Heirloom, a DAC company, opened up the doors to their Tracy plant, providing a tour of their operations and fielding questions on their approach. Carbon180 followed up with a workshop, which was facilitated using Chatham House rules.
The goals of this workshop were:
- Facilitate two-way learning on technological CDR, and create space to explore perceptions, concerns, and opportunities;
- Introduce Carbon180’s toolkit, an educational resource to help potential host communities get an understanding of DAC and its associated infrastructure;
- Develop relationships between community-based organizations and CDR advocates through trust-building and candor.
DAC in action
One of my immediate observations was how close the DAC facility was to our hotel and popular shopping centers. It challenged the assumption that DAC is tucked away in an industrial area. Another early observation was just the sound of DAC: as the humming and beeping of equipment encompassed us and our raised voices, we began the day. Heirloom staff handed out hard hats and conducted the tour of their open-air warehouse. We were first shown the electric kiln that heats porous limestone, which extracts CO2 molecules from the ambient air like a sponge. Many participants had questions about the lifecycle of the limestone, how many times it could be effectively reused, and how it is ultimately disposed of.
Next, we were introduced to a striking, 40-foot-tall stack of trays, reminiscent of the racks found at a bakery; in this case, the trays held CO2-extracting limestone. Under the supervision of a full-time operations team, a fleet of robots moved the trays around, in a vivid illustration of automation — a theme that repeatedly surfaced in the group workshop. The rest of the tour took us through the latter half of Heirloom’s process, wrapping at the storage tank, where the CO2 is gathered before being trucked off-site to be transformed into cement. This part of the tour generated curiosity about the cumulative impacts of DAC projects on the surrounding area and how larger projects might consider a different approach to carbon transportation through pipelines instead of trucks.
The tour underscored how DAC suppliers, like Heirloom, are tasked with balancing the requirements of project financing with the concerns of individuals seeking assurance that the project won’t negatively harm their quality of life.
Talking it out
After a quick debrief and a collaborative process to set the workshop agenda, the group voted to spend the remainder of our time focused on geologic storage and the relationship between DAC and federal policy. Below is a snapshot of some key points of discussion and some lessons learned.
A co-learning environment invites curiosity
There were a lot of participants who were very skeptical of DAC and other forms of technological CDR in the room. And yet, there was never a shortage of deeply thoughtful and direct questions aimed at learning more about the people and infrastructure necessary for DAC to succeed. There was a genuine investment in navigating nuanced topics and addressing concerns in order to arrive at a shared understanding. What’s more, we noticed a palpable shift from “yes/no to DAC” to identifying frameworks for oversight, safety, and clear prioritization of community well-being. And most importantly, our representatives from EJ organizations were clear on the need to triple-down on ensuring an aggressive phaseout of fossil fuels above all.
Balance is needed between the need for speed with care in scale-up
There is a deep push-pull between the need to scale rapidly and the care that needs to go into protecting people and the environment. Despite conversations around overshoot and the necessity of CDR to limit warming to 1.5°C, the speed in which projects are coming online was a point of tension. Concerns weren’t rooted in the idea that CDR projects are being deployed exceptionally fast — but that industrial projects like DAC do not happen in a vacuum. Workshop participants noted that some forms of CDR — like many other types of climate technology — seem to be discussed and scaled without thoughtfully considering the cumulative impacts of existing and forthcoming technologies.
There are still many concerns around resource use
During the tour, participants learned that Heirloom’s process is all-electric and runs on 100% locally-sourced renewable energy. Although this was exciting for many participants, it also raised concern around other projects, and the pressure they could have on the grid. Some participants proposed the need to build for-purpose energy on site, while others noted that could lead to powering DAC with options that oppose a broader transition away from fossil fuels.
Land use and water use impacts of scaling DAC were also forefront, especially considering our setting in the San Joaquin Valley, an area known for being an agricultural powerhouse but also its water scarcity concerns. Again, Heirloom shared that their capture, calcium oxide (lime), is able to bind to water present in the air, which makes humid regions an attractive place for deployment.
We must identify the opportunities to strengthen DAC hubs policy and implementations
Engagement with communities impacted by industrial projects illustrate the need to shift the federal, top-down power paradigm. Awardees of the Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program, which supports the construction of first-of-its-kind megaton-scale projects, must pursue new modes of fostering interdependent power, in order to optimize safety, innovation, and reciprocal benefit from the ground up.
Takeaways
In my many years working at the intersection of CDR and equity and justice, I believe this site visit provided one of the most salient opportunities to directly introduce community partners to carbon removal technology. An industry leader answering rapid-fire questions on site about their technology, not speaking in hypotheticals or terms of projected or desired outcomes, brought a level of clarity to this one version of DAC. It also raised new, informed questions about other approaches that exist and their respective tradeoffs.
As my colleague Ashlynn Hall pointed out, “Developers should take away that, despite their best efforts, there will be variables that the project development team hasn’t considered or prioritized to the extent necessary to make their technology feel safe to surrounding communities. While developers might not have all the answers themselves, they must communicate with a commitment to transparency and articulate when and why they may not be able to share additional data. Perhaps more importantly, developers must demonstrate safety as a core value over innovation, rather than merely a priority.”
Trust isn’t built off of one trip together, but our time spent in person helped all parties better understand where distrust comes from, where present opportunities exist, and the larger ecosystem of concerns from both communities and CDR advocates. This is powerful information to support a vision of durable and responsible carbon removal that can at once deliver co-benefits for communities and help us meet our climate goals. This vision balances the urgency with which we need to move and the care that necessitates durable and responsible deployment.
Edited by Ana Little-Saña. Image by Jon Tyson.