World’s largest vacuum just opened
The world’s largest facility designed to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, akin to a colossal vacuum, commenced operations in Iceland on Wednesday.
Dubbed “Mammoth,” this plant is the second commercial direct air capture (DAC) facility launched by Swiss company Climeworks in Iceland. Mammoth is ten times larger than its predecessor, Orca, which became operational in 2021.
Direct air capture technology entails drawing in air and removing carbon using specialized chemicals. The extracted carbon can then be injected deep underground, repurposed, or converted into solid materials.
Climeworks intends to transport the captured carbon underground, where it will naturally transform into stone, effectively locking away the carbon indefinitely. The company is collaborating with Icelandic firm Carbfix for this sequestration process.
The entire operation will be fueled by Iceland’s abundant and clean geothermal energy. Next-generation climate solutions like direct air capture (DAC) are garnering increased attention from governments and private industries as humanity continues to rely on fossil fuels. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, a key driver of global warming, reached a record high in 2023. With the planet experiencing escalating temperatures and consequential impacts on both humans and nature, many scientists argue that alongside rapid reductions in fossil fuel usage, methods to extract carbon from the atmosphere are essential.However, carbon removal technologies such as DAC remain contentious. They are criticized for being costly, energy-intensive, and unproven at large scales. Some climate advocates worry that they may divert attention and resources from efforts to decrease reliance on fossil fuels.
Lili Fuhr, director of the fossil economy program at the Center for International Environmental Law, remarked that this technology “is fraught with uncertainties and ecological risks,” addressing carbon capture broadly.Climeworks commenced construction of Mammoth in June 2022, touting it as the world’s largest plant of its kind. The facility features a modular design capable of accommodating 72 “collector containers,” the components responsible for capturing carbon from the air. These containers can be stacked and maneuvered easily.
Currently, 12 of these collector containers are operational, with more slated for installation in the coming months.At full capacity, Mammoth is projected to extract 36,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere annually, as per Climeworks. This amount is equivalent to removing approximately 7,800 gas-powered cars from the road for one year.
While Climeworks did not specify the exact cost per ton of carbon removed, they indicated that it is closer to $1,000 than $100 per ton, with the latter being widely regarded as a critical threshold for making the technology financially feasible and effective. The company aims to reduce costs to $300 to $350 per ton by 2030 as they scale up their plant sizes, eventually reaching $100 per ton by around 2050, according to Jan Wurzbacher, co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks.
Stuart Haszeldine, a professor of carbon capture and storage at the University of Edinburgh, hailed the new plant as “an important step in the fight against climate change,” emphasizing its role in expanding carbon capture equipment. However, he cautioned that it represents only a small fraction of what is required.
Despite advancements, all carbon removal equipment worldwide can only capture around 0.01 million metric tons of carbon annually, significantly below the 70 million tons per year needed by 2030 to align with global climate targets, as stated by the International Energy Agency.
But there may be a catch. Occidental says the captured carbon will be stored in rock deep underground, but its website also refers to the company’s use of captured carbon in a process called “enhanced oil recovery.” This involves pushing carbon into wells to force out the hard-to-reach remnants of oil — allowing fossil fuel companies to extract even more from aging oil fields.
It’s this kind of process that makes some critics concerned carbon removal technologies could be used to prolong production of fossil fuels.
But for Climeworks, which is not connected to fossil fuel companies, the technology has huge potential, and the company says it has big ambitions.
Jan Wurzbacher, the company’s co-founder and co-CEO, said Mammoth is just the latest stage in Climeworks’ plan to scale up to 1 million tons of carbon removal a year by 2030 and 1 billion tons by 2050.Plans include potential DAC plants in Kenya and the United States.
