The list notes that around $50 million has been terminated for both projects, the initial tranche of federal funding for the developments. Each could have received about $500 million as the projects proceeded, according to the DOE announcement in 2023.
It’s not immediately clear if the termination of the initial grants means the full funding will also be canceled.
“It could mean nothing,” says Erin Burns, executive director of Carbon180, a nonprofit that advocates for the removal and reuse of carbon dioxide. “It could mean there's a renegotiation of the awards. Or it could mean they’re entirely cut. But the uncertainty certainly doesn’t help projects.”
Battelle and 1PointFive didn’t immediately respond to inquiries from MIT Technology Review. Nor did the Department of Energy.
"Market rumors have surfaced, and Climeworks is prepared for all scenarios,” Christoph Gebald, one of the company's co-CEOs, said in a statement. He added later: “The need for DAC is growing as the world falls short of its climate goals and we’re working to achieve the gigaton capacity that will be needed.”
“We aren’t aware of a decision from DOE and continue to productively engage with the administration in a project review,” Heirloom said in a statement.
The rising dangers of climate change have driven the development of the direct-air capture industry in recent years.
Climate models have found that the world may need to suck down billions of tons of carbon dioxide per year by around midcentury, on top of dramatic emissions cuts, to prevent the planet from warming past 2˚ C.
Carbon-sucking direct-air factories are considered one of the most reliable ways of drawing the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere, but they also remain one of the most expensive and energy-intensive methods.
Under former President Joe Biden, the US began providing increasingly generous grants, subsidies and procurements to help scale up the nascent carbon removal sector.