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🗞️ Driving the news: Climeworks unveiled its Generation 3 direct air capture (DAC) plant, promising to halve energy usage and costs compared to older models, marking a significant step towards commercial viability of carbon capture technology

🔭 The context: Direct air capture technology, though promising for reducing atmospheric CO2, has been prohibitively expensive
• Climeworks' innovation could make it more accessible and effective, with current DAC plants capturing a tiny fraction of CO2 emissions globally

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Advancements in DAC technology can play a crucial role in mitigating climate change by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, complementing other efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions

⏭️ What's next: Climeworks plans to deploy its Generation 3 DAC plants in the US, starting in Louisiana, and expand to other countries including Australia, Norway, Kenya, and Canada, aiming to bring capture costs down to $250-350 per ton by 2030

💬 One quote: "If Climeworks makes good on that promise, it could go a long way toward making this technology, a viable way to reduce the amount of carbon pollution building up in the atmosphere," stated Justine Calma, senior science reporter

📈 One stat: The International Energy Agency predicts DAC plants need to draw down 85 million metric tons of CO2 annually by the end of the decade to meet Paris climate agreement goals, and the current capacity is only about 0.01 million metric tons per year

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