World's largest plant capturing carbon from air starts in Iceland

[PSPS]

World's largest plant capturing carbon from air starts in Iceland
Reuters


COPENHAGEN, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The world's largest plant that sucks carbon dioxide directly from the air and deposits it underground is due to start operating on Wednesday, the company behind the nascent green technology said. Swiss start-up Climeworks AG, which specialises in capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air, has partnered with Icelandic carbon storage firm Carbfix to develop a plant that sucks out up to 4,000 tons of CO2 per year. That's the equivalent of the annual emissions from about 790 cars. Last year, global CO2-emissions totalled 31.5 billion tonnes, according to the International Energy Agency.

Direct air capture is one of the few technologies extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and is viewed by scientists as vital to limit global warming, blamed for causing more heatwaves, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels. The Orca plant, a reference to the Icelandic word for energy, consists of eight large containers similar in looks to those used in the shipping industry, which employ high-tech filters and fans to extract carbon dioxide. The isolated carbon is then mixed with water and pumped deep underground, where it slowly turns into rock. Both technologies are powered by renewable energy sourced from a nearby geothermal power plant.

Direct air capture is still a fledgling and costly technology, but developers hope to drive down prices by scaling up as more companies and consumers look to reduce their carbon footprint.

More: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/worlds-largest-plant-capturing-carbon-air-starts-iceland-2021-09-08/

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. This is (almost) literally like pissing in the ocean (nt)

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Historic.

It’s a start, which is a heck of a lot more than what most have done.

[NickB79]

3. To put this in perspective, we'd need 8 MILLION of these plants for our annual emissions

To say nothing of removing the hundreds of billions of tons of carbon already in the air.

[hatrack]

5. Ten million, actually, assuming anthropogenic carbon is around 40 billion tons a year

Of course, you'd also have to generate power to drive these machines, so might be a good idea to build a few more.

A potentially promising technology, but we don't have a great deal of time left to deal with what we've created.

[Blanks]

4. Trees are easier to plant. nt

[Crunchy Frog]

6. Meanwhile the naturally occurring ones are being systematically destroyed.