The world’s largest carbon capture plant – which sucks carbon dioxide from the air – has just opened.
A UN report says carbon capture technology is necessary if the world is to be carbon neutral by 2050.
But many experts believe the technology is too expensive and not scalable over the next few decades.
Framed by a backdrop of volcanoes, a semicircle of gigantic fans in Iceland suck in air, overheat it, then filter the carbon dioxide.
This carbon capture and storage facility, called Orca, was commissioned two weeks ago after more than 18 months of construction. The fans are built into boxes the size of a shipping container, and once the carbon dioxide is separated, it mixes with water and then travels through tubes of grease that meander deep underground. , where the carbon cools and solidifies.
Through this process, Orca can trap and sequester 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, making it the largest such facility in the world (although there are currently only two in operation).
“Think of it like a vacuum cleaner for the atmosphere,” Julio Friedmann, an energy policy researcher at Columbia University who attended the plant’s dedication ceremony, told Insider. “Nothing else can do what this technology does.”
According to the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), carbon capture and storage is a necessary part of our best climate scenarios. But currently, facilities like Orca are only canceling a fraction of global emissions.
Climatologist Peter Kalmus did the math: “If it works, in one year it will capture the equivalent of three seconds of humanity’s CO2 emissions.” he wrote on Twitter.
In other words, Kalmus told Insider, “at any given moment, it will pick up one 10 millionth of humanity’s current emissions.”
“It is remarkable to me that it is seen as part of these plans,” he said of the IPCC report.
“Probably the most expensive solution”
Equipment used to capture carbon dioxide at a coal-fired power plant owned by NRG Energy in Thompsons, Texas, Jan. 9, 2017.
Ernest Scheyder / Reuters
The Orca facility operates differently from the carbon capture technologies incorporated in some power plants, steel mills and industrial facilities. These collect the carbon produced in the manufacturing process before it enters the air. It can then be made into materials like concrete or stored underground.
More than 20 facilities worldwide currently do this, most of which are in the United States. But it just keeps more carbon from building up in the atmosphere. Orca, on the other hand, is an attempt to tackle the greenhouse gases that are already up there.
This technology, known as direct air collection, is in its infancy. Swiss company Climeworks, which built Orca, has the only operational game in town; its other factory is in Switzerland. Before that, the technology had only been used on a small scale in spacecraft and submarines.
Two more factories are in the planning phase: Canadian company Carbon Engineering, backed by Bill Gates, began three months ago to design a similar facility in north-east Scotland. He also plans to begin construction of a plant in Texas next year. Each of these facilities could remove up to 25 times more carbon per year than Orca.
A Climeworks installation for capturing carbon dioxide on the roof of a waste incineration plant in Hinwil, Switzerland, July 18, 2017.
Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters
But as with many emerging technologies, direct air capture is expensive. Christoph Gebald, co-founder of Climeworks, told the Washington Post that it costs at least $ 600 to capture a ton of carbon dioxide because overheating the air uses a lot of energy.
That cost is expected to drop to a quarter of its current level to bring it in line with technologies like wind and solar in terms of carbon reduction – the degree of emission reduction. To sell carbon commercially – such as to beverage companies making soft drinks – the price would have to drop further, probably between $ 65 and $ 110 per metric tonne.
Friedmann believes a drop to less than $ 200 is likely by 2030, and a drop to $ 100 two decades later. By this point, he said, the market for carbon elimination – with companies paying to reduce their emissions – will have grown significantly.
But even at that price of $ 100, eliminating all of humanity’s annual carbon emissions would cost more than $ 5,000 billion a year, according to Gates’ book, “How to Avoid Climate Catastrophe.” This would require 50,000 Orca plants.
“It’s probably the most expensive solution,” Gates wrote.
Melting icebergs near Ilulissat, Greenland.
Ulrik Pedersen / NurPhoto via Getty Images
There is also the question of timing. The IPCC report says that without capturing significant amounts of carbon over the next 30 years, it will be impossible to bring humanity to net zero emissions by 2050 – and, therefore, limit warming to 1, 5 degree Celsius.
But Mathew Barlow, a climatologist at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, said three decades were not enough for the technology to be widely deployed.
“There is no possible way for it to span this timescale,” Barlow, who contributed to the IPCC report, told Insider. “We’re at the point where you need to take the technology off the shelves, not build it.”
“Fossil fuel companies love carbon capture”
However, plants like the orca outperform their natural counterparts, trees.
“The Orca facility does the job of 200,000 trees in 1,000 times the space,” Friedmann said.
Plus, once a facility like this stores its carbon, it’s locked away. If the trees burn, the carbon they have absorbed is released.
A reforestation project in Leiria, Portugal in 2018.
Carlos Costa / Getty Images
But trees capture carbon at a much lower cost of $ 50 per metric tonne.
Kalmus believes that carbon capture ultimately diverts the world from other solutions that would reduce emissions further, such as investing in renewables and regulations targeting the fossil fuel industry.
“Fossil fuel companies love carbon capture because it really lets them get away with it,” he said.
Friedmann, however, believes that it is possible to expand the carbon capture infrastructure enough to make a difference. If the Senate Infrastructure Bill passes the House, it will allocate $ 3.5 billion to direct air capture facilities in the United States. Elon Musk also announced this year that he is funding a $ 100 million carbon capture competition.
“We now know we can do it,” Friedmann said. “Now we are just haggling over the price and literally asking how much we are willing to pay to save Earth.”
