On August 11, 2023, the Department of Energy announced up to $1.2 billion to advance the development of two commercial-scale direct air capture (DAC) facilities in Texas and Louisiana.[1] The projects are the first facilities of this scale in the U.S. and are the first selections for the Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program, which was funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and aims to jumpstart a nationwide network of large-scale carbon removal sites. The recipients included Project Cypress of Louisiana and South Texas DAC Hub. Battelle runs Project Cypress in coordination with Climeworks Corporation and Heirloom Carbon Technologies, Inc. South Texas DAC was created by 1PointFive, a subsidiary of Occidental, and its partners Carbon Engineering Ltd and Worley. The two projects are anticipated to remove more than 2 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually while providing 4,800 jobs. The DOE stated that 19 additional DAC projects were selected for award negotiations to support earlier stages of project development, be they feasibility assessments or front-end engineering and design studies.

[1] https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-announces-12-billion-nations-first-direct-air-capture