Dac

Direct air capture is publishing at nearly double last year’s rate. By early July 2026 the CDR Researcher Census had already logged 379 DAC papers - almost the entire 2025 total of 422, in half a year. The run is a clean doubling roughly every two years: 157 papers in 2022, 214 in 2023, 350 in 2024, 422 in 2025. 2026 is indexed only through early July, so the last bar is a floor; annualised it points to about 730 papers, and indexing lag will push the real figure higher. Of the seven census pathways, DAC’s absolute output is mid-pack, but its acceleration is among the steepest - and it is the count most trusted externally. Lück and colleagues’ 2025 map of global CDR research in Nature Communications put 108 DAC papers in 2021 against the census’s 109 - a near-exact match, the tightest of any pathway. ...

Direct Air Capture (DAC) is the use of engineered equipment — fans, sorbents, solvents, or electrochemical cells — to separate carbon dioxide from ambient air, concentrate it, and hand it off to either permanent storage or industrial use. Unlike point-source capture at a power plant or cement kiln, DAC has no flue gas to draw from: it works against an atmospheric concentration of roughly 425 ppm, which is the central reason it is both energy-intensive and, when paired with geological storage, one of the most durable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) options available. For buyers and policymakers building portfolios with century-plus permanence, DAC sits alongside mineralization and bio-oil sequestration as a small-but-growing share of the durable removals market. ...

First US ocean CDR bill introduced, WHOI’s alkalinity trial shows no marine harm, forward carbon credit deals hit $5.8B, and Sweden freezes a BECCS project. Your daily carbon removal roundup.

Origis Energy’s 500MW Swift Air Solar complex is now powering Occidental’s STRATOS Direct Air Capture facility in Texas. DAC finally gets the clean energy it needs.