I proudly call the Intermountain West home, having been raised in Logan. I moved back to Utah because of my love for our wilderness, big sky and kind people. But, my relationship with this region is complicated.

Utah is prone to poor air, made worse by industry and poor policy. This is partly due to geographic factors — like the bowl of Salt Lake Valley that creates inversions, forcing colder air to settle in the valley and trap pollution. But, the state is also a hub for extractive industries including copper and magnesium, with oil refineries and little public transit, all of which increase the pollution and harmful gasses in our air.

As a child in Logan, there were days we were encouraged to stay inside because of the hazards breathing outside presented. My sister and mother developed asthma from that air. As an adult now in Salt Lake, pollution-laden air builds across the valley within hours of a storm. Refineries, smokestacks and cars drift their pollution into the sky, paired with record-breaking temperatures and unpredictable weather.

I spent most of my youth trekking Utah’s pristine wilderness, as snow levels decreased and average temperatures rose. This formative experience has driven my profession: combating climate change. As a director of policy at Carbon180, a nonprofit committed to removing two centuries of CO2, I focus on advancing federal policies that support carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies like direct air capture (DAC), a technology that pulls carbon from air and stores it underground (cue the “Spaceballs” planet air vacuum scene).

CDR encompasses a variety of approaches to remove carbon from the air — from land practices that enable soil to hold more carbon to technologies like DAC. CDR is a growing industry, identified by international bodies as critical to keeping our planet livable. It has seen historic investments from the private sector and the federal government, including its $3.5 billion investment to build DAC facilities across the country. One of these, the Red Rocks DAC Hub, awarded $2.8 million in federal funding, is slated to be built in Utah. These investments represent CDR’s bipartisan support and broader role in the climate and our economy.

It is in CDR that I see so much opportunity for Utah, its economy, its environment and the millions of people who call it home.  

Carbon removal’s potential for Utah

This year, the Western Governors Association (WGA) held several conferences on decarbonization efforts, including the deployment of CDR in our region through its “Decarbonizing the West” initiative.

The initiative often conflated CDR with “carbon capture and storage” (CCS) — a technology that is used to collect carbon as it is being emitted from an industrial process. These two climate technologies share some infrastructure and terminologies but are distinctly different. CDR addresses CO2 already in the atmosphere while CCS captures CO2 at the source of emission, such as a refinery or smokestack, to create products that have lower carbon emissions. While CCS is an important part of addressing current emissions, only CDR can remove the legacy CO2 emissions that are causing climate change.

The WGA directly said that it wants to use CCS and CDR to allow extractive industries in the West to continue expanding. This perspective is problematic and moves us closer to that doom and gloom future. CDR should not be used to continue emitting CO2. Instead, it needs to be paired with decarbonization efforts, removing planet-warming CO2 and bringing local benefits like a stronger, cleaner economy and workforce to this region. Here’s how.

Utah’s ideal location: DAC requires building facilities to suck CO2 from the air that is then either utilized in other projects or injected deep underground where it will be permanently stored in a solid state. There are a few parameters that make Utah an ideal location for these facilities.

First, DAC is energy-intensive, so the facilities need to be built near an energy source, like geothermal, solar, wind and even nuclear. These are energy sources that Utah is especially equipped to deploy.

Second, DAC facilities need somewhere to store the carbon, and as identified in the DOE’s Roads to Removal report, the Intermountain West has excellent rock for storage. This means Utah can offer these facilities close, accessible energy and storage, building fewer pipelines and fewer environmental and social harms associated.

Co-benefits of DAC in Utah: Saying Utah has been impacted by the energy transition is an understatement. As Utah and the rest of the world shift to new energy sources, coal counties, including Emery, Sevier and Carbon, could dry out with the industries that had fueled them in the past. So often I hear, “We can’t get rid of oil, gas and coal because it will kill jobs.” The truth is there are better, safer jobs available now. People, especially in rural areas, don’t have to rely on jobs that might directly harm them and pollute their air. Instead, these communities and workers (if they choose) can become hosts to DAC facilities, bringing high-paying skilled jobs and economic growth, as outlined by Rhodium Group’s 2020 and 2023 reports.

As such, Utah could be a center of this new industry with our ideal geology, geothermal capacity and options for new energy sources.

Recommendations for Utah

At Carbon180, we emphasize that DAC cannot succeed if it is implemented the way other major industries have been by creating financial winners and losers, and if it overburdens low-income, Black, brown or Indigenous communities. DAC must be high-quality, just and equitable.

First and foremost, if done right, DAC should be built with communities from the start. Wherever a DAC facility might be built, it needs to be planned with community input, ownership, benefits sharing and a plan to create jobs locally.

Second, DAC development in Utah can’t come at the cost of marginalized communities who are already exposed to more pollution and worse effects of climate change.

Third, DAC should be built close to energy generation and storage. It’s not acceptable to build DAC where it would be powered by a fossil-fueled grid, requiring miles of new transmission lines to power it and miles of pipelines to move the CO2 to viable storage sites.

We have the chance to change Utah’s future — make the state a hub for innovation and rebuild the economy around clean energy and high-paying jobs — but only if we center communities from the start and prioritize solutions that drive both environmental and job benefits.

Kajsa Hendrickson leads technology-based carbon removal policy at Carbon180 using her background in renewable energy and sustainability consulting. She holds a BA in political science from Washington State University and an MA in peace and justice studies from the University of San Diego. Kajsa calls West Jordan home and spends her free time in Utah’s wilderness.