California can hit its goal of going carbon neutral by 2045 if it pulls emissions out of the air and slashes greenhouse gases from farming, landfills and other sources, according to a federal study released yesterday.The nation’s most populous state needs to remove 125 million tons of carbon emissions per year from the atmosphere, roughly equivalent of removing 26 million cars from its roads annually, said an analysis by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Removing carbon from the atmosphere, or direct air capture, is a cornerstone of the report. The technology involves absorbing carbon into a solvent or onto a solid material. Then that carbon is released into a stream for storage. The process is energy intensive, the report said, and using solar or wind to power the system would mean taking up swaths of land. For that reason, the report said, it focused on direct air capture using solvent-based systems powered by natural gas with CO2 capture and systems powered by geothermal energy.
