Climate technology company Climeworks said that it had broken ground, heralding the beginning of construction on its biggest facility yet to capture carbon dioxide emissions, in an announcement yesterday. The new plant, named Mammoth, will scale up the company’s operations in Hellisheiði, Iceland.

Climeworks built Orca there, and was the largest direct air capture plant in the world. It came online last year in September. The Orca plant captures up to 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, the rough equivalent of the pollution 790 gas-powered passenger vehicles release yearly. In comparison, Mammoth can capture about nine times the CO2 more than Orca.

Unfortunately, these plants are just two of the few such facilities in the world, not that they have the capacity to make any significant impact on combating climate change emissions, says the International Energy Agency. In order to match growing greenhouse gas emissions, the direct air capture industry has to be able to pull 85 million tons of CO2, by 2030. The Verge had done a comparison earlier this year, finding that the current industry only pulls about 0.01 million tons. 

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While DAC sounds great in theory, the process requires tremendous amounts of energy. Fortunately for the Orca and the Mammoth plants, they’re both located within the ON Power Geothermal Park at Hellisheiði. Their placement allows then to use renewable geothermal energy and excess heat to separate CO2 from air.

Other such plants are in construction around the world, with one being built in Texas, which is expected to finish construction and be operational in 2025. The Texas plant is allegedly supposed to be able to capture 1 million tons of CO2, but will require a mix of renewable energy and natural gas to be able to function. 

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As for where the CO2 will go? Climeworks plans to convert the CO2 into stone. The company is working with Carbfix to store the converted stones in the many basalt rock formations in the region. Construction work on Mammoth is expected to take the next 18 to 24 months.