Construction Begins on Largest Direct-Air Capture Plant

Climeworks, a technology-based climate solutions company, specializes in building facilities that capture carbon dioxide out of the air and then recycle or dispose of it. Mammoth, its gargantuan new facility, will capture about 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year once fully operational. That’s nine times as much carbon dioxide as its previous plant Orca, which took the “world’s largest” title when it opened almost a year ago.

Each of Climeworks’ plants consist of stacked modular carbon-capture machines. These machines begin by using a fan to draw air inward. Inside, a “selective” filter material captures carbon dioxide until it’s full, after which the machine is closed off. Climeworks operators turn up the interior temperature to between 80 and 100 degrees Celsius (176 – 212 degrees Fahrenheit), which releases the concentrated carbon dioxide for collection.

The collected carbon dioxide then has two paths: upcycling or permanent storage. Climeworks says most of its upcycled carbon dioxide enters the circular economy, where it’s used for aviation fuel or carbonated beverages. While this helps to create a closed carbon cycle by slowing the increase of new carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it doesn’t help to decrease the total amount of carbon dioxide—something Earth desperately needs. This means some captured carbon dioxide needs to be geologically stored, most often using porous and permeable reservoir rock.

Of course, all direct-air capture plants require energy to run in the first place. Mammoth and Orca are situated within the ON Power Geothermal Park in Hellisheiði, Iceland, so both are able to power functions using geothermal energy and waste energy. Climeworks says the rest of its facilities also use renewable energy, but hasn’t specified exactly what kind.

Mammoth will join the ranks of about 20 other direct-air capture plants around the world. (Fifteen of these are Climeworks’.) As the startup scales, it hopes it will reach a collective multi-megaton capacity by 2030 and gigaton capacity by 2050. The massive plant is expected to be completed in 18-24 months.

Direct-air capture plants make up just one climate solution out of several necessary ones. Scientists around the world estimate that 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide would need to be removed from the atmosphere each year in order to achieve US and global emissions reduction targets by 2050. Reaching such a high capacity would require a lot of Mammoth facilities. But, as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day—and neither will be tens of thousands of direct-air capture facilities.

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