Scheme backed by Dominic Cummings to ‘suck’ excess carbon dioxide from the air and bury it underground gets £100m from the Treasury
- Dominic Cummings wants the to spend £100m in direct air capture technology
- The technology uses chemical filters to capture carbon dioxide from the air
- The resulting solution is then pumped underground where it is stored
- It currently costs around £500 to store one tone of carbon dioxide
Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings is backing a scheme to suck carbon dioxide out of the air using technology first used on World War Two submarines.
The air scrubbers, known as direct air capture, use a chemical solution to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere.
The CO2-laden solution would then be stored underground, reducing the amount of the climate change gas in the atmosphere.
Dominic Cummings, pictured, wants to spend £100 million to develop technology to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it underground
Cummings, pictured arriving at Downing Street, believes if Britain invests heavily in the technology it could become a world leader
The system sees Carbon Dioxide removed from the atmosphere and stored underground
According to The Times, Cummings has authorised £100 million from the Treasury to further develop the technology to enable Britain to reach its climate change obligations.
Cummings believes with a significant early investment in the technology, Britain could become a world leader in the area.
However, one Whitehall source claimed: ‘Dom had become obsessed by this. He’s the one who has been pushing it despite huge scepticism from officials. But he’s got his way.’
According to academic research, the technology is incredibly expensive and requires tremendous energy. For each one tonne of CO2 captured, it costs £500.
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