The US has offered $3.5 billion in grants for direct air capture in the hope of reducing the cost of removing carbon from the atmosphere. According to Reuters – The world is failing to reduce carbon emissions fast enough to avoid catastrophic climate change, a truth that gives life to a technology that has been marginal for years – pulling carbon dioxide out of the air. The U.S. government has offered $3.5 billion in grants to build factories that will capture and permanently store the gas — the world’s largest such effort to help stop climate change through direct air capture (DAC) — and has expanded a tax credit to $180 per ton to support the emerging technology. The sums dwarf funding available in other regions, such as Britain, which has pledged up to 100 million pounds ($124 million) for DAC research and development. That compares with $12 billion in federal spending to boost demand for personal and commercial electric vehicles, the Boston Consulting Group estimates. While bids for funding for a U.S. DAC center were due to be submitted on March 13, the government and some companies have yet to fully disclose details of the applications, many of which are being reported by Reuters for the first time. The U.S. Department of Energy expects to announce the winning bids this summer.