Thinking Greener & Powered by Renewable Energy
Today, Climeworks AG, a Swiss company, went live with the world’s largest CO2 air scrubber, located near Reykjavik. The scrubber uses Iceland’s geothermal heat and renewable energy to power the facility.
The technology is comprised of eight air collectors that are arranged around a central plant. Each collector has a fan on one side and intake vents on the other side, with carbon capturing filters in the middle. As air is pulled through the intake vents, the filters capture the CO2 out of the air. Once filters have been saturated, the collector shuts down to remove the carbon from the filter. This is achieved by closing both sides of the collector and heating the air filter to 176-212 degrees Fahrenheit. In the process of removing the pure CO2, water is mixed in to transport the carbonated water deep underground where it will form new rock in about two years! Amazing!!!
This is a scalable solution that can be implemented around the world. Remember, there is no one solution that will help us to stay below the 1.5 – 2 degrees Celsius mark. You may soon be seeing these CO2 air scrubbers on every corner of the street, much like a streetlight, electrical pole, or Mc Donald’s.
Other companies around the world are engineering mechanical means of carbon sequestration. A 100-acre facility that could sequester 1 million metric tons of CO2 annually, will soon break ground in Scotland.