The Climeworks plant is designed for a nameplate capture capacity of up to 36,000 tons of CO2 per year by filtering CO2 from the air and storing it permanently underground. The plant, which will be completed throughout 2024, has successfully started to capture its first CO2, with 12 of its 72 collector containers installed onsite.
Mammoth is Climeworks’ second commercial facility in Iceland and is about ten times bigger than the earlier Orca plant.
Climeworks uses renewable energy to power its direct air capture process, which requires low-temperature heat like boiling water. The geothermal energy partner ON Power in Iceland provides 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, which transforms into stone, and remains permanently stored. Climeworks verifies and certifies the whole process by independent third parties.
Mammoth is another milestone in Climeworks journey to reach megaton carbon removal capacity by 2030 and gigaton scale by 2050.
”Starting operations of our Mammoth plant is another proof point in Climeworks’ scale-up journey to megaton capacity by 2030 and gigaton by 2050,” said Jan Wurzbacher, co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks. “Constructing multiple real-world plants in rapid sequences makes Climeworks the most deployed carbon removal company with direct air capture at the core.”
Beyond Iceland, Climeworks is developing multiple megaton hubs in the US with operational and testing experience derived from its now two commercial plants in Iceland. Climeworks is part of three megaton direct air capture hub proposals in the US, all of which were selected by the US Department of Energy for public funding for a total of more than US$600 million. The largest one, Project Cypress in Louisiana, was granted an initial US$50 million in March to kickstart the project.
