The world’s largest plant designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and turn it into rock recently started running. The plant, named Orca, after the Icelandic word orka meaning “energy”, consists of four units, each made up of two metal boxes.
Constructed by Switzerland’s Climeworks and Iceland’s Carbfix, when operating at capacity the plant will draw 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air every year.
The plant uses fans to draw air into a collector with a filter material inside. Once the filter material is filled with CO2, the collector is closed and the temperature is raised to release the CO2 from the material, after which the highly-concentrated gas is collected. The CO2 is then mixed with water before being injected at a depth of 1,000 metres into the nearby basalt rock where it is petrified. Proponents of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) believe these technologies can become a major tool in the fight against climate change.
Picture Credit : Google
