dac

The largest carbon removal plant

June 11, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Direct air capture (DAC) is process that removes carbon dioxide out of the air and stores it away where it can no longer trap heat in the atmosphere. It is intended to be a way of getting rid of the greenhouse gases that have built up in the atmosphere. In principle, it’s a great idea. In practice, it is a huge challenge.

In 2017, a company called Climeworks became the first company to take carbon dioxide out of the air and sell it as a product for use in carbonated drinks and in greenhouses. In 2021, the company opened a DAC plant called Orca in Iceland that captures CO2 and permanently stores it underground. Clients like Microsoft pay Climeworks for doing this as a way of offsetting their own emissions.

Recently, Climeworks has started operating a new plant called Mammoth – also in Iceland – that will be able to capture about 10 times more carbon dioxide than Orca. Iceland is a prime location for DAC technology because its abundant geothermal energy makes powering it cheap and environmentally friendly.

Mammoth, when fully operational, will remove about 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, the largest DAC system in the world. But there is a long, long way to go. Microsoft alone emits nearly 13 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

There are multiple DAC projects in development including several in the United States being funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The four DAC hubs being developed under the program are each supposed to have the capacity to capture at least a million metric tons of CO2 a year.

Whether DAC can make a real difference remains to be seen.

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The world’s largest carbon removal plant is here, and bigger ones are on the way

Photo credit: Climeworks

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Direct Air Capture | Earth Wise

October 15, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There is a lot of interest in carbon capture and sequestration (or CCS) in the context of trapping the carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and industrial facilities. The fossil fuel industry is especially enthusiastic about the potential for continuing to burn fuels without harming the environment. Apart from the technical challenges, there is the looming problem of CCS adding significant costs to power generation that is already losing the economic battle to renewable sources.

Direct air capture is a different matter. This is the idea of actively taking CO2 out of the atmosphere. This already happens by natural means such as sequestering it in soil or forests. But there is considerable work going on aimed at developing technology to capture atmospheric carbon dioxide in massive quantities.

This September marks the opening of a new project called “Orca” in Iceland, which will, for the time being, be the largest direct air capture system in the world. Once it is running around the clock, Orca will remove up to 4,000 metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year.

Even larger DAC plants – one in the southwestern U.S and another in Scotland – are planned to come online in the next few years.

Ultimately, the question is whether direct air capture is feasible at large enough scale and affordable cost. The numbers are daunting. Society releases over 30 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. Removing significant amounts of that with DAC technology is an enormous challenge. Eliminating emissions remains the most practical way to mitigate the effects of climate change.

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The Dream of Carbon Air Capture Edges Toward Reality

Photo, posted November 10, 2017, courtesy of Governor Jay and First Lady Trudi Inslee via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Capturing CO2 From The Air

November 9, 2018 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It is increasingly clear that the rate at which carbon dioxide emissions are being reduced is not sufficient to prevent dire consequences of climate change. It appears that it will be necessary to try to actually remove carbon dioxide from the air. Such actions are termed “negative emissions.”