The largest facility designed to suck CO2 starts operating in Iceland

In Iceland, the largest facility in the world starts operating, which absorbs carbon dioxide directly from the air and stores it underground. This was announced today by Climeworks AG and Carbfix, which are behind this emerging environmental technology. The Swiss start-up Climeworks specializes in capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air. It chose the Icelandic company Carbfix, which focuses on carbon dioxide storage, as his partner. Together, they have developed a facility that draws 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the air a year. This corresponds to annual emissions of about 790 cars. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global carbon dioxide emissions last year amounted to 31.5 billion tons. Direct capture of carbon dioxide from the air is one of several technologies that allow it to be captured from the atmosphere. Researchers see this as a necessary step to reduce global warming, which appears to be causing major heat waves, forest fires, floods and rising sea levels. The device is called Orca, which is a reference to the Icelandic term for energy. It consists of eight large containers similar in appearance to those used in shipping, which contain high-quality filters and fans to extract carbon dioxide. The isolated carbon dioxide is then mixed with water and pumped deep underground, where it slowly turns into rock. Both technologies use renewable energy from a nearby geothermal power plant. Direct capture of carbon dioxide from the air is still a nascent and expensive technology, but developers hope to reduce prices by expanding equipment as more companies and consumers seek to reduce their carbon footprint. According to the IEA, there are now 15 direct carbon dioxide capture systems in operation worldwide, capturing more than 9,000 tonnes a year. The American oil company Occidental is currently developing the largest direct carbon capture facility, which is to extract one million tons of carbon dioxide a year from the air near some of its oil fields in Texas.