Climeworks started building Mammoth, the world's largest CO2 direct air capture plant

Although direct air capture's potential overall contribution to addressing climate change remains to be determined, there is no lack of firms, governments, and research groups pushing the technology forward. Climeworks AG is a prominent figure in this field, having today broken ground on its second direct air capture (DAC) plant in Iceland and one that represents significant progress toward its goal of removing gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year by 2050.

Climeworks has been at the forefront of direct air capture technology for some time, turning on the world's first "negative emission" power plant in 2017. This was made possible by a collaboration with carbon storage firm CarbFix, which in 2016 made a significant advance in this area by demonstrating how CO2 might be mineralized in less than two years rather than the hundreds or even thousands of years it previously took.

Climeworks' first real direct air capture plant, which began operating in Iceland last year, was able to safely store 12.5 tons of CO2 each three months in a test pilot facility and paved the way for the company's next major step: scaling up its operations. Orca is a modular installation that can absorb 4,000 tons of CO2 each year and has a stackable design that will be important to Climeworks' plans for expansion.

Climeworks has already begun construction on its second business-scale direct air capture facility, which will also be built using a modular design and collect up to 36,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. Construction is expected to last 18 to 24 months, after which CarbFix will store the captured carbon. Renewable energy will be used to power the direct air capture and storage systems as with Orca.

Now it seems like a good time to point out that each year, humans release more than 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Countering this significant increase in atmospheric CO2 would require an enormous number of Mammoths and Orcas. Climeworks, on the other hand, is well aware of the difficulty ahead of it, and sees its first plants as early but crucial steps along a long road.