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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: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday September 10 2021, @11:07PM
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."