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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: 3, Insightful) by corey on Friday September 10 2021, @12:05AM
His point was not to give up, but to stop digging coal up and burning it, among other emitting exercises.
Each dollar spent in carbon capture gets you say 1 unit of reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
But each dollar spent in reducing carbon emissions in the first place gets you much more that 1 unit, probably 10, or even 100+.
He’s exactly right, you notice the ones doing and promoting the carbon capture are almost always the same ones doing the emissions in the first place. It’s all money.
We need to keep focussed on not emitting in the first place. Then we can start with carbon capture. Planting more trees is probably cheaper and more effective than big machines
I was also going to say, ok to build this machine in Iceland as a demo unit. But the CO2 density is low there. Build it in the middle of a big city or highway where the density is much higher. It’s going to be much more effective there.