In order to remove pollution that warms the globe, the “world’s largest” plant was built, and it started producing electricity in Iceland on Wednesday.
The Swiss business Climeworks has completed a second commercial direct air capture plant in the nation called “Mammoth,” which is ten times larger than its predecessor Orca, which began operations in 2021.
Direct air capture, or DAC, is a method that uses chemicals to draw in air and extract the carbon from it. After then, the carbon can be recycled or turned into solid materials by injecting it well below the surface of the earth.
Climeworks intends to move the carbon underground, where it will spontaneously convert to stone and be locked away for good. It is undertaking this’sequestration procedure’ in collaboration with the Icelandic company Carbfix.
The clean, plentiful geothermal energy of Iceland will power the entire enterprise.
Governments and the corporate sector are paying increasing attention to next-generation climate solutions like DAC as long as people continue to use fossil fuels. In 2023, atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide hit a record high.
Many experts believe that in addition to significantly reducing the use of fossil fuels, the world must discover techniques to remove carbon from the atmosphere as the earth continues to heat up, which will have catastrophic effects on both humans and the natural world.
However, carbon removal technology like DAC remain contentious. They have drawn criticism for being pricy, energy-hungry, and lacking large-scale testing. Concerns about diverting attention away from fossil fuel reduction initiatives are another worry shared by some climate supporters.
Regarding carbon capture in general, Lili Fuhr, director of the fossil economy program at the Center for International Environmental Law, stated that this technique “is fraught with uncertainties and ecological risks.”
According to Climeworks, Mammoth is the largest facility of its kind in the world. Construction on the project began in June 2022. Its modular design allows for the easy stacking and moving of 72 “collector containers,” which are the vacuum-assisted elements of the machine that extract carbon from the air. Twelve of them are in operation at the moment, and more are scheduled to be added in the next months.
At maximum capacity, Mammoth will be able to extract 36,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere annually, according to Climeworks. That would be the same as removing 7,800 gas-powered vehicles from the road for a full year.
Climeworks did not provide a precise cost per ton of carbon eliminated, but they estimated that it was more like $1,000 per ton than $100 per ton, which is generally considered to be a critical threshold for making the technology practical and economical.
The goal, according to Jan Wurzbacher, co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks, is to reach $300 to $350 per ton by 2030 before falling to $100 per ton by 2050 as the company grows up the capacity of its plants and reduces expenses.
Professor of carbon capture and storage at the University of Edinburgh Stuart Haszeldine called the new facility “an important step in the fight against climate change.” The apparatus used to trap carbon emissions will grow in size.
However, it’s still a very small portion of what’s required, he warned.
According to the International Energy Agency, all of the carbon removal technology in existence can only remove around 0.01 million metric tons of carbon annually, a small fraction of the 70 million tons that would be required by 2030 to satisfy global climate targets.
Other businesses are now developing considerably larger DAC plants. For instance, Stratos, which is presently being built in Texas, is intended to remove 500,000 tons of carbon annually, according to Occidental, the oil firm owning the project.
There might be a catch, though. Although the company’s website mentions using captured carbon in a procedure known as “enhanced oil recovery,” the captured carbon will really be stored in rock well below the surface of the earth. Fossil fuel firms can extract even more from old oil fields by forcing the hard-to-reach oil remains out of wells by forcing carbon into them.
This kind of approach worries some critics who believe carbon removal technologies may be exploited to extend fossil fuel production.
Climeworks, a startup independent of fossil fuel giants, asserts that its ambitious goals align with the immense potential of this technology.
Mammoth is only the most recent phase in Climeworks’ goal to scale up to 1 million tons of carbon removal annually by 2030 and 1 billion tons by 2050, according to co-founder and co-CEO Jan Wurzbacher.
Plans call for possible DAC plants in the US and Kenya.