Scaling up Carbon Capture: World's Largest Direct Air Capture Plant Opens in Iceland

Saturday - May 11 2024, 06:18 UTC - 6 months ago

The newly opened Mammoth plant in Iceland, operated by Climeworks, is now the world's largest direct air capture facility, with the capacity to extract 36,000 tons of CO2 per year. Carbon capture is gaining more attention and acceptance as efforts to reduce emissions fall behind schedule. The captured carbon is permanently stored in rock formations by Carbfix, making it a promising solution in the fight against climate change.

As concerns over climate change continue to grow, the need for effective solutions becomes more urgent. One crucial weapon in the fight against climate change is the process of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in efforts to develop and deploy carbon capture technology, and this week saw a major milestone with the opening of the world's largest direct air capture plant in Iceland.

Initially, there was resistance from scientists and policymakers to the idea of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Some feared that this approach would lead to a reduced sense of urgency around reducing emissions. However, with progress on emissions reduction falling behind schedule, there has been a growing acceptance that carbon capture is crucial to avoiding the worst consequences of climate change.

Various methods for carbon capture have been proposed, including reforestation, regenerative agriculture, and locking carbon up in minerals. However, the approach attracting the most attention is direct air capture. This process involves the use of large facilities powered by renewable energy to remove CO2 from the air.

One of the leaders in this space is Swiss company Climeworks, which previously held the title for the world's largest direct air capture plant with their Orca facility in Iceland. However, this week they began operations at their new plant called Mammoth, which has nearly ten times the capacity of Orca. The Mammoth plant will be able to extract 36,000 tons of CO2 per year, nearly quadrupling the current global carbon capture capacity of 10,000 tons per year.

Jan Wurzbacher, co-CEO of Climeworks, said in a statement, "Starting operations of our Mammoth plant is another proof point in Climeworks' scale-up journey to megaton capacity by 2030 and gigaton capacity by 2050. Constructing multiple real-world plants in rapid sequence makes Climeworks the most deployed carbon removal company with direct air capture at the core." .

Climeworks' plants use fans to suck air into large collector units filled with a sorbent material that absorbs CO2. Once the sorbent is saturated, the collector shuts and is heated to release the CO2. The Mammoth plant features 72 of these collector units, with a new V-shaped configuration and an extra level added to the collector stacks to improve airflow and performance. This design also reduces land use per ton of CO2 captured.

The captured CO2 is then permanently stored through a partnership with Carbfix, an Icelandic company that has developed a process to inject CO2 dissolved in water deep into porous basalt rock formations. Over time, the CO2 reacts with the rocks to form stable carbonate minerals, which can be stored safely for thousands of years. Unlike the Orca plant, the Mammoth plant has two on-site injection wells, reducing transportation costs, and a new CO2 absorption tower that operates at lower pressures, reducing energy consumption compared to the previous approach.

While Mammoth is a significant step forward, Climeworks has much bigger ambitions and plans to reach gigaton capacity by 2050. In fact, the US government has earmarked $3.5 billion to build four direct air capture plants, which will be capable of capturing 1 million tons of CO2 per year. This accounts for more than a tenth of the CO2 emissions from the largest coal plant in the US. The potential for carbon capture to make a significant impact on reducing emissions and tackling climate change is enormous.