Two major airlines have announced plans to help offset their flight emissions with carbon removal credits from a new Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility being developed in the US. Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) was the first airline to sign a direct purchase agreement with Houston-based 1PointFive, while European low-cost carrier easyJet will acquire credits supplied by the same company, but sourced through the Airbus Carbon Capture Offer. Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS) uses large fans to filter and remove CO2 directly from the air, after which it is permanently stored in underground reservoirs. The 1PointFive facility, under construction in the Permian Basin oilfield in south-west Texas, will use carbon capture and storage technology developed by Canadian company Carbon Engineering, in which Airbus invested last year. ANA will acquire its carbon removal credits over three years, starting in 2025, while easyJet will do so between 2026 and 2029.

ANA will acquire a total of 30,000 metric tonnes of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) credits, or 10,000 tonnes in each of three years, with the captured CO2 to be sequestered in saline reservoirs that are not used for oil or gas production.

“Reaching our goal of carbon neutrality is one of the key priorities for ANA, and we are actively diversifying our methods to pursue sustainability,” said the airline’s President and CEO, Shinichi Inoue. “As we continue to review and invest in sustainable and innovative technologies and processes that help further our mission, we look forward to seeing the positive impact that partnering with 1PointFive brings to our airline.”

Michael Avery, President of 1PointFive, welcomed the partnership with ANA, Japan’s largest airline group, as part of its broader decarbonisation strategy. “Direct Air Capture is a vital and scalable carbon removal technology that is necessary to help society achieve net zero,” he said. “The aviation industry can uniquely benefit from DAC as a pathway to removing carbon emissions securely, practically and on a large scale.”

United Airlines was an early entrant into DAC when it announced an investment in 1PointFive nearly three years ago.

Low-cost giant easyJet has become the first airline to sign up to the Airbus Carbon Capture Offer, through which the airframer offers verified carbon removal credits to help offset flight emissions.

Airbus invested in Carbon Engineering late last year, and over a four-year period will acquire 400,000 tonnes of carbon removal credits from 1PointFive, which is Carbon Engineering’s licensed US partner.

“Decarbonising a hard-to-abate sector such as aviation is a huge challenge,” said Thomas Haagensen, Group Markets Director at easyJet, which operates more than 300 Airbus A320-family jets on almost 1,000 routes in Europe. “We believe carbon removal will play an important role in addressing our residual emissions in the future, complementing other components to help us achieve our pathway to net zero.

“Our ultimate aim is to achieve zero carbon emission flying and as well as investing into important projects like direct air carbon capture technology, we are working with multiple partners, including Airbus, to accelerate the development of zero carbon emission aircraft technology.” 

The easyJet commitment follows an agreement last year in which it joined Air Canada, Air France-KLM, International Airlines Group, LATAM Airlines Group, Lufthansa Group and Virgin Atlantic to engage in negotiations on the possible pre-purchase of verified carbon removal credits, to be issued from 2025 by 1PointFive.

Supported by investors including Airbus and Air Canada, Carbon Engineering developed direct air capture technology at its research plant in Squamish, Canada. It is now targeting large-scale deployment, with 1PointFive using the technology to develop direct air capture infrastructure at megaton capacity, initially in the Permian Basin, and with plans for more sites.

“The Direct Air Capture facility, targeted to become operational in 2024 in the Permian Basin, is expected to capture up to 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year,” explained the companies. “This is roughly equivalent to the work, or absorption capacity, of approximately 40 million trees.”

Julie Kitcher, Airbus EVP Communications, Sustainability and Corporate Affairs, welcomed the deal with easyJet, which she described as “a strong advocate of decarbonisation.”

“This agreement demonstrates the airline’s willingness to extend its environmental commitment through Airbus’ Carbon Capture Offer,” she said. “Initiatives such as this one underline Airbus’ commitment to decarbonisation solutions for our industry, and to bringing together airlines and industry players from all sectors in order to build a sustainable aviation ecosystem.”

As part of its strategy to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, easyJet is focused on a mix of new technologies and operational efficiencies, and beyond Airbus has formed partnerships with Rolls-Royce, GKN Aerospace and Cranfield Aerospace Solutions. As an interim target, the airline is also pursuing a 35% reduction in emissions intensity by 2035, compared to 2019.

Top photo: Thomas Haagensen of easyJet and Wouter Van Wersch of Airbus at DACCS contract signing

Tony Harrington

Correspondent

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United Airlines has ramped up its 2018 pledge to cut its net greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 by announcing a new ambitious commitment to a 100 per cent reduction by the same year. In an industry first, the US airline says it will meet its carbon neutrality goal through a multimillion-dollar investment in Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology rather than purchasing carbon credits to offset residual emissions. The investment is being made in 1PointFive, a partnership between Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, a subsidiary of Occidental, and Rusheen Capital Management, which is using technology licensed from Carbon Engineering in the first industrial-sized DAC plant in the United States. United has already invested $30 million in sustainable aviation fuel producer Fulcrum BioEnergy, the single largest investment in SAF production by any airline globally.

“As the leader of one of the world’s largest airlines, I recognise our responsibility in contributing to fight climate change, as well as our responsibility to solve it,” said United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby. “These game-changing technologies will significantly reduce our emissions and measurably reduce the speed of climate change – because buying carbon offsets alone is not enough. Perhaps most importantly, we’re not just doing it to meet our own sustainability goal, we’re doing it to drive the positive change our industry requires so that every airline can eventually join us and do the same.”

DAC technology, says the airline, is one of the few proven ways to physically correct for aircraft emissions and can scale to capture millions, and potentially billions, of tonnes of CO2 per year. The first 1PointFive plant is expected to capture and permanently sequester one million tonnes of CO2 each year (currently, the world’s largest DAC facilities have the capacity to capture several thousand tonnes of CO2 per year), the equivalent work of 40 million trees, claims the company, yet covering a land area around 3,000 times smaller.

The captured CO2 will then be stored deep underground in geological formations by Occidental and the process certified by independent third parties. Occidental has been permanently storing CO2 for more than 40 years, with nearly 20 million tonnes sequestered in its operations annually. The company has two US EPA-approved monitoring, reporting and verification plans to validate the integrity, transparency and permanence of the entire sequestration process. Its contribution to the venture includes engineering, project development and other technology performance assistance that will provide support for the development and financing of the DAC plant.

The exact location for the plant has not yet been revealed except that it is in the Texas Permian Basin, with a land footprint of around 100 acres (40 hectares). 1PointFive announced in August that the plant was in the design and development phase with the final front-end engineering design slated to begin in the first quarter of 2021 and construction expected to start in 2022. The company says the venture with Carbon Engineering has been enabled by market policies such as the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard and Federal 45Q tax credit.

“Assessments by major organisations such as the IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences are increasingly clear that to avoid the dangerous impacts of climate change, we will need to remove billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere,” said 1PointFive CEO Jim McDermott. “A global DAC industry will be key to achieving this. It will also bring significant economic benefits, leading to the development of new industries and thousands of jobs.”

United believes sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), with up to 80% less lifecycle carbon emissions than conventional fuel, remains the fastest and most effective way to reduce its emissions. It holds more than 50% of all publicly announced future SAF purchase commitments among airlines globally. Last year, United renewed its contract with World Energy, agreeing to purchase up to 10 million gallons of “cost-competitive” SAF.

The airline has longest history of using SAF in the US and has been powering every flight departing its Los Angeles hub since 2016, carrying 26 million passengers on 215,000 flights powered by a SAF blend. In 2019 it committed $40 million towards an investment initiative focused on accelerating the development of SAF and other decarbonisation technologies. Earlier this month, the Carbon Disclosure Project named United as the only airline globally to its 2020 ‘A List’ for the airline’s actions to cut emissions, mitigate climate risks and help develop the low-carbon economy, marking the seventh consecutive year that United had the highest CDP score among US carriers.

“When I became United Airlines’ new CEO at the beginning of the pandemic, I did so with a grand vision for our company: to make sustainability the new standard in flight,” said Kirby in an open letter on LinkedIn. “I realise it’s an ambitious vision for someone in an industry that depends on burning fossil fuels to operate. As the leader of one of the world’s largest airlines, I recognise our responsibility in contributing to climate change as well as our responsibility to solve it. It’s no longer enough for us to connect the world without making sure it has a future.”

Kirby said traditional carbon offsets did almost nothing to tackle the emissions from flying. “And, more importantly, they simply don’t meet the scale of this global challenge,” he added. “Carbon emissions have increased 4,000 times since the industrial revolution. It’s just not realistic to think we can plant enough trees to start bending that curve today.

“We’re embracing a new goal to be 100% green by 2050 by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions 100%. And we’ll get there not with flashy, empty gestures, but by taking the harder, better path of actually reducing the emissions from flying. I believe the world and the airline industry has to be bolder.”