The US Department of Energy recently set a similar goal of bringing the cost of technological carbon removal to under $100 per ton. Early customers have been companies and individuals willing to pay a premium, such as Microsoft, Stripe, Swiss Re and even the band Coldplay (which hired Climeworks to cancel out some of the emissions from its upcoming world tour).Ĭlimeworks is aiming to get that cost down to between $100 and 200. With the application of heat, the CO 2 is released from the amines, and then it gets pumped into nearby volcanic rocks, where it forms long-lasting carbonate minerals.Ĭurrently, removing a ton of CO 2 at Orca costs between $600 and $800, which is prohibitive for most potential payers. In that moment, the CO 2 goes from the chaotic fray of the atmosphere to the ordered grip of humanity, potentially remaining under control for thousands of years to come. The rest of the air continues out the other side of the collectors, but the carbon sticks tight to the amines. That point of contact is a magical moment. Within the collectors, the CO 2 molecules hit the surface of a specially developed filter material, where molecules, called amines, selectively grab onto them. On the back, there are 12 fans that pull air through the box. On the front of each box, there are slats, kind of like large venetian blinds. The Orca plant consists of eight shipping container-sized boxes, which Climeworks calls collectors. “When you do direct air capture, you don’t need to go where the CO 2 is, because air is everywhere,” said Wurzbacher. It’s a solution that works across the globe. Compared to capturing CO 2 at the source, it’s more challenging and costly to pull CO 2 literally out of thin air, but a benefit of direct air capture is that it doesn’t require finding and stopping every single polluter. There are natural methods, like planting trees, and there are technologies that capture CO 2 directly from smokestacks and other emission sources. We might end up needing to remove 20 billion tons, because we can’t ramp down fast enough coal power plants and other stuff.”ĭirect air capture technology is one among many options for removing excess CO 2. “By mid-century, we need to remove 10 billion tons of CO 2, if everything else goes well. “It’s relatively simple climate math,” Wurzbacher explained on a video call from Zurich, Switzerland, where Climeworks is based. Without enough cuts, the need for carbon removal could be even higher. That number is a best-case scenario, assuming that aggressive cuts in emissions are achieved through other means. To meet that goal, the United Nations has estimated that 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide will need to be removed from the atmosphere annually by 2050. Carbon removal, by math and magicīy “Paris” targets, Wurzbacher was referring to the global goal of limiting emissions to two degrees Celsius (or ideally 1.5 degrees), established under the 2015 Paris Agreement. “The combination of direct air capture and storage is very likely what the world will need at a massive scale if we want to be compliant with Paris climate targets,” said Jan Wurzbacher, the CEO and co-founder of Climeworks. Vacuuming up carbon dioxide was once considered a last resort, but it’s looking like we’re headed toward a future where last resorts are a must-have. Though the plant has only been operational since September, its air-straining technology, known as direct air capture, has been a point of contention among environmentalists for much longer. They fit right into an already larger-than-life Icelandic landscape, where the wind blows fierce even on a rare day when sunlight gleams off the icy mountaintops. Orca’s carbon-capturing devices resemble giant transistor radios. But in Hellisheidi, Iceland, a geothermally active plateau just outside of Reykjavik, a new technology is taking a small but mighty step toward fixing it.Ī plant called Orca, built by Climeworks, is the first-ever facility where CO 2 is being filtered directly from the air and stored permanently underground.
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