The cleantech company Climeworks, headquartered in Zurich, has begun operations at its largest plant to date for the direct air capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Iceland, according to a statement. Mammoth is Climeworks' second commercial plant in the country. It is around ten times larger than its predecessor, Orca.
The plant is designed for a nameplate capacity of up to 36,000 tonnes of CO2 per year once it is fully operational. It filters CO2 from the air and stores it permanently underground. According to the statement, the plant has successfully started its first CO2 capture process. Twelve of the 72 collection tanks have been installed on site.
Climeworks broke ground on Mammoth in June 2022. The plant is built as a modular construction, with twelve of its total 72 collection containers currently installed on site. It will be completed throughout 2024.
Climeworks uses renewable energy to power its direct air capture process. Geothermal energy partner ON Power in Iceland supplies the energy necessary for this process. Once the CO2 is released from the filters, storage partner Carbfix transports the CO2 underground, where it reacts with basaltic rock through a natural process and remains permanently stored. Climeworks verifies and certifies the whole process by independent third parties, according to the statement.
“Starting operations of our Mammoth plant is another proof point in Climeworks’ scale-up journey to megaton capacity by 2023 and gigaton by 2050,” Jan Wurzbacher, co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks, is quoted as saying.
