Iceland launches "Mammoth", the world's largest facility to capture carbon from the air

Swiss startup Climeworks opened the world's largest carbon capture plant in Iceland on May 8.

The plant, called “Mammoth,” is designed to remove 36,000 metric tons of carbon each year, which is equivalent to taking 8,600 cars off the road.

The company's previous carbon capture plant, called Orca, which opened in Iceland in 2021, absorbs about 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually, but the new plant can handle nearly ten times that, according to the company. As reported by the Washington Post.

The Mammoth station includes 72 industrial fans that can pull 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually, in an attempt to prove that technology has a place in combating global warming.

Just as with Orca, carbon dioxide is not recycled. It is stored underground and eventually trapped in stone, permanently (within reason) removed from the environment.

The Mammoth plant, the largest facility of its kind  to capture and store carbon dioxide, launched operations last week. It's located on a dormant volcano in Iceland, so it would be a great hideout if Mammoth were to stop working.

The site was chosen because of its proximity to the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant, which is used to operate the facility's fans and heat chemical filters to extract carbon dioxide along with water vapor.

After extraction, the carbon dioxide is separated from the steam, compressed and dissolved in water. Finally, it is pumped 700 meters (2,300 feet) underground into the volcanic basalt that makes up 90 percent of Iceland's subsurface. This compound reacts with magnesium, calcium, and iron present in the rock to form crystals, which become solid reservoirs of carbon dioxide. This is described as “a very impressive technology.”

However, this is not the final solution to climate change. For the world to achieve “carbon neutrality” by 2050, “we must remove approximately 6 to 16 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually from the air,” according to Climeworks founder Jan Wurzbacher, citing a CBS News report. ".

Although the Mammoth facility, the largest of its kind, is capable of absorbing up to 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year, this represents only 0.0006% of what is needed to meet minimum annual removal. , according to Wurtzbacher.

He pointed out that there are still other plans to establish such stations, but together they do not significantly affect what is needed to pull us back from the brink of the abyss.

To that end, Wurzbacher implored other companies to take up the cause, saying Climeworks aims to exceed 1 billion tons by 2050.

Carlos Hertel, the company's chief technology officer, said that expanding the operation globally is possible, but requires political will.