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posted by martyb on Thursday September 09 2021, @08:51PM   Printer-friendly

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).


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09 2021, @09:56PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09 2021, @09:56PM (#1176399)

    Wouldn't it be far more efficient to run the things that currently emit CO2 on zero-emissions energy instead?
    That's where the investments should go if you care about this issue.

  • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday September 09 2021, @10:16PM (1 child)

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 09 2021, @10:16PM (#1176401)

    Yeah but no.

    Renewable energy (with geothermal as in TFA being a notable exception) has an intermittency problem. Sun doesn't always shine (on your panels), wind doesn't always blow, etc.
    They try to reduce the chance of blackouts by having lots of types of renewable, but that also means when everything is working there is too _much_ power - here they (we) often pay
    wind power producers to turn the turbines _off_ on days of plenty.

    A lot of the big power consuming processes require reliable non-intermittent power. Shut down a blast furnace and it takes weeks (and lots of power and $$$) to restart.
    So you absolutely need reliable base load providers - mostly nuclear or fossil fuel (burning biomass also, but that has now got a dodgy less-than-green rep, geothermal only works in limited locations.

    A better idea would be to continue to have fossil, nuclear etc. for reliable & base load, top up with lots of renewables _and_ use the surplus energy when the renewables are all online to power carbon capture to offset the fossils use. That is _if_ the carbon capture process is one of those that can be turned on/off at will and not something which needs continuous reliable power itself... (I don't know if that's the case or not)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09 2021, @11:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09 2021, @11:20PM (#1176418)

      Deep shaft geothermal can be built just about anywhere.

  • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 10 2021, @12:19AM (2 children)

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Friday September 10 2021, @12:19AM (#1176437)

    Wouldn't it be far more efficient to run the things that currently emit CO2 on zero-emissions energy instead?

    If we had time that would be the preferred course of action.

    But as of 2019Fossile fuels accounted for about ~68% of the worlds electrical capacity. Replacing that with zero emission energy sources like solar and wind is going to take decades at least and require some serious industrial capacity that just isn't in place yet.

    With the exceptions of Hydroelectric (16%) and nuclear(12%) all other Carbon neutral sources of electricity combined make up a whooping 3% of the annual electricity needs of the world.

    Think about that for a moment, 3%, just three fucking percent of the electricity used annually by the world comes from solar, wind, and all the other "green" sources.

    Betting on those to save our asses within the next decade is pure fantasy. Give them another 3-4 decades and maybe, just maybe they can come close. But currently those technologies come at environmental costs that no one is really talking about right now or have localization issues that don't let them scale very well.

    That's where the investments should go if you care about this issue.

    Very true except people aren't doing that, they are ignoring, or vehemently objecting to, zero emission energy sources that have the capacity to be solutions today.

    The best Carbon neutral energy sources currently are Hydroelectric and nuclear. Hydro isn't going to get expanded much in the future due to the environmental damage they cause and just the simple fact that its not suited for all locations.

    Nuclear energy also has had issues that have made it a second "N word" that no one wants to talk about. But it is probably our best short term bet with the alternative reactor designs that are finally getting the attention they deserve. It is the only Carbon neutral source that can scale to local needs and be used in just about every location on the planet. If a Thorium fuel chain is used with the right core design it can be a lot safer, cleaner, and more efficient than any other currently viable zero emission energy source available. It also has the huge advantage of allowing coal and gas fueled power plants to be retrofitted to nuclear which can help to phase out fossil fuels faster as the cost of a converted plant is going to be a lot cheaper than a new plant from scratch.

    We don't have time anymore to sit around argue about what is the best Carbon neutral energy source. The Hoard is at the gate. We need to use the ones we have now to bridge the cap between present and future "perfect" energy sources.

    --
    "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @02:41AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @02:41AM (#1176482)

      Good points, except I will reiterate that this proposed atmospheric carbon sequestration device is 100% dependent on zero-emissions power to do any good.

      Not only that, but one unit sequesters little carbon, so you will have to build a freaking lot of them to have any impact at all. You will have to MASSIVELY SCALE UP ZERO-EMISSIONS POWER GENERATION for this to work. Do you not see the problem here? If massively scaling zero emissions power generation is possible, YOU DON'T NEED THESE CARBON SEQUESTERS. You use that zero-emissions power directly for your power generation needs.

      This thing is a greenwashing SCAM.

      • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 10 2021, @11:07PM

        by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Friday September 10 2021, @11:07PM (#1176820)

        Your right, to power these CO2 capture plants we need the use zero emission or Carbon neutral energy sources for it to mean anything and powering them from the grid is going to require getting rid of the current CO2 spewing sources anyway.

        Except for one little thing your over looking.

        The Carbon already in the air. Did you forget that part? You know, the stuff currently causing the average global temperature to increase. Just planting trees and singing Kubai-ya isn't going to help as fast as we need it to. We need to get the CO2 out of the air asap and get the levels back to what they were in the mid 20th Century at minimum, or preferably back to early/mid 1800's levels before Humanity started fucking the air up in the first place.

        Another factor your over looking is that these plants can be built anywhere there is a local carbon free source of energy, like that geothermal field in the middle of Siberia, that modest sized desert island in the middle of the Paciffic that gets sunlight 90% of the year, or some other middle of nowhere location that isn't worth using otherwise because of the power lines to connect it to the grid would cost too much. Just use the C-neutral energy at site to extract CO2 from the air.

        Are CO2 capture plants like this a preferred solution? No. But for right now we need to be evaluating and using ALL options to reduce/remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Fast. So plants like this CO2 capture may seem like a scam currently the technology is going to be needed in near and foreseeable future. This is a pilot plant, the tech will improve and the efficiencies will likely increase to where they actually are doing more than just making a symbolic gesture. We are on the verge of being at the point where even clutching at straw will help.

        If Humanity had actually started to do something about he CO2 levels 60 years ago when the rising levels were first noticed we wouldn't be at the point today where we have to build machines to remove the CO2 from the air. We didn't. And here we are.

        --
        "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."