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The World's Biggest Plant to Suck Carbon Dioxide From the Sky Is Up and Running:
The world's biggest direct air capture (DAC) plant is set to come online in Iceland on Wednesday. The moment is an important one in developing new technologies to help suck carbon dioxide out of the air—but raises a whole host of questions on the future of how we're going to put those technologies to use.
The Orca plant, located about 20 miles (30 kilometers) southeast of the capital of Reykjavík, uses large industrial vacuums to remove carbon dioxide from the air. The plant's owners and operators, a Swiss startup called Climeworks, said that the plant can remove 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere, powered by hydrothermal energy. Climeworks has partnered with a carbon storage company to take that carbon dioxide and store it deep underground, where it turns into stone (whoa) after about two years.
Unlike other carbon capture technologies that prevent carbon dioxide from being released from dirty technologies in the first place—which are generally attached to fossil fuel facilities—DAC plants like Orca present the possibility of removing some of the damage we've already done. In theory, we could dot the earth with plants like Orca, resulting in what are known as "negative emissions." These types of technology aren't ready for primetime at scale yet, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said we need them to help meet the target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) outlined in the Paris Agreement (in addition to cutting emissions in the first place of course).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hauke on Thursday September 09 2021, @09:40PM (3 children)
I'm sure there are new technologies that will benefit from this endeavour.
However, does anyone have any idea what this plant cost to build?
-There's a lot of steel and other metals there, what's the carbon cost of producing the materials that went into this plant?
-What's the carbon cost of transporting said materials and the construction crew to the site?
-What about the construction equipment and fuel used to build the plant?
-What about ongoing costs? (Maintenance, repairs, geothermal still heats the atmosphere)
In short, how long (assuming 4,000 tons of CO2 per year), does it take for this plant to pay for itself?
TANSTAAFL
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09 2021, @09:55PM (2 children)
You are not supposed to think of these sort of things. Everyone knows they used unicorn magic to make this, just like they use to make and recycle cell phones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @01:50AM (1 child)
Bzzzt wrong! Same fallacy as "electric cars won't work cause making batteries pollutes."
It is always the same excuse to not stop pumping pollution into the atmo. Yes there are lies and bullshit, but punish those and don't lose site of saving our planet from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday September 10 2021, @05:00AM
"Won't work"? The cars themselves clearly work; it's just a question of whether they actually save CO2 as is their purpose for being.
Quite quick to whip out the fallacy button here buddy
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"