World’s largest direct air capture plant operational

Swiss Climeworks has started operations of its largest direct air capture and storage facility in Iceland called Mammoth.

Climeworks has started up its largest direct air capture and storage (DAC+S) plant, called Mammoth, in Iceland. It is Climeworks’ second commercial DAC+S plant, and is about ten times larger than its predecessor, Orca.

The plant is designed to capture up to 36,000 tons of CO₂ per year when fully operational, filtering CO₂ from the air and storing it permanently underground. Mammoth has already successfully begun capturing its first CO₂, with twelve of the planned 72 collector containers already installed at the site.

Mammoth represents another milestone on Climeworks’ path toward megaton carbon removal capacity by 2030 and gigaton capacity by 2050, key goals for combating global warming.

The company is developing several megaton hubs in the United States, leveraging operational and testing experience gained from its two commercial plants in Iceland.

Work on Mammoth began in June 2022, and the plant has already successfully started capturing CO₂. The plant uses renewable energy to power the direct air capture process, which requires low-temperature heat such as boiling water. Geothermal energy partner ON Power in Iceland provides the energy needed for this process. Once the CO₂ is released from the filters, storage partner Carbfix transports the CO₂ underground, where it reacts with the basalt rock through a natural process, turning to stone and remaining permanently stored. Climeworks verifies and certifies the entire process through independent third parties.

With Mammoth, the company will gain additional operational experience in the field, while its 180 science and R&D experts will continue to perform large-scale testing and development.

By 2030, Climeworks’ roadmap focuses on launching megaton hubs and is part of three proposed direct megaton air capture hubs in the United States, all selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for public funding totaling more than $600 million. The largest, the Cypress Project in Louisiana, received initial funding of $50 million in March to start the project. The company will replicate its megaton hubs around the world to achieve global scale and is actively developing projects in Norway, Kenya, and Canada exploring additional potential direct air capture and storage sites.

Climeworks is the first company in the world to achieve certification of its carbon removal activities to the Puro standard for its Orca plant in Iceland, operational from 2021.

Source: climeworks