26 October 2021

We all know that we are almost on the verge of making the climate crisis irreversible, but there seems to be good hope. Companies are coming forward with technology to fight climate change on a massive scale. 

The world’s biggest carbon-capturing plant was opened in Iceland last month, and this means we have been slowly trying to find solutions to make our planet more sustainable and habitable for a long time now. Here’s all you need to know about the planet’s biggest plant that captures around 4000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year.

The carbon-capturing plant is one of its kind and the biggest yet located on Iceland's outskirts in Reykjavik. This machine sucks gigantic amounts of CO2 from the air directly and dumps it underground. Confused about how it works? 

Orca or the new climate-positive plant in Iceland is designed and created by Swiss company Climeworks. The project took 15 months to complete and is up and running now. Capturing 4000 tonnes of CO2 is equivalent to the annual emissions of 790 cars. According to the International Energy Agency, last year’s carbon emissions amounted to 31.5 billion tonnes.

Image Source - Climeworks

An effort to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere

Direct air capture is one of the few technologies that scientists believe is important to combat climate change. The amount of heatwaves, wildfires, and rising sea levels is drastically increasing, putting our planet at risk. 

The Orca plant brings hope as we all fight climate change together. The plant has eight large containers that resemble shipping containers. Hi-tech filters and fans are employed to capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere. Though the current cost of creating the plant is very high, developers believe that as more and more companies come forward to fight climate change, the production cost will go lower.

Image Source - Climeworks

How does it actually work?

Yes, this is the part that we were fascinated with as well. Climeworks AG is a start-up that has partnered with Icelandic carbon storage firm Carbfix to develop this plant. Carbfix works in rapid underground mineralization. The CO2 captured by Orca will be combined with water and pumped deep into the earth’s surface. These will get captured in stones due to their natural process of mineralization in just two years. These will eventually slowly turn into rocks. 

Image Source - Techxplore

The Future of Orca and other Carbon Capturing Plants

Presently 15 carbon-capturing plants across the globe together capture up to 9000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year. Occidental, a US oil firm, is currently developing the largest carbon-capturing plant yet that can capture up to 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. These plants will be erected in large open spaces near some of the oil factories in Texas.

“With this success, we are prepared to rapidly ramp up our capacity in the next years. Achieving global net-zero emissions is still a long way to go, but with Orca, we believe that Climeworks has taken one significant step closer to achieving that goal,” shared Climeworks co-CEO Jan Wurzbacher.

The company aims to increase the carbon capture capacity to 500,000 metric tons by 2030. They are also planning to construct another plant ten times the present one in Iceland. Carbon capture technology is vital for our future. A UN report says carbon capture technology is necessary if the world wants to be carbon neutral by 2050.

While it does sound so good to be true, it does have some hurdles before it could reach a level where it could have an actual impact on climate change. For this, big corporations and other industries should take up the responsibility to cut down their carbon emissions by installing these plants.