Smog, soot, greenhouse gases, and many other air pollutants are affecting the planet. Air pollution is majorly contributing to climate change. It is affecting the entire planet, our ecosystem – aquatic and non-aquatic. It is causing health problems for the current generation and will affect the future population as well. Biggest Airborne Carbon Pollution Capturing System In The World.
The U.N. has recently updated global Air Quality Guidelines to control air pollution. Only time will tell how many countries will strictly follow these guidelines. That is one way to handle it but another way has been discovered as well.
Jan and Christoph, co-founders of Climeworks, are on a mission to reverse climate change. Climeworks was founded in 2009 and is now the leader in direct air capture (DAC) technology. They have worked on a technology called ‘direct air capture’, it is a way to capture carbon dioxide directly from the air.
In 2017, Climeworks commissioned the world’s first commercial-scale direct air capture plant in Switzerland and the world’s first carbon dioxide removal plant in Iceland.
On 8th September 2021, Climeworks launched Orca, the world’s largest direct air capture and storage plant, in Iceland.
For Orca, Climeworks has partnered with the Icelandic company Carbfix. Climeworks removes the carbon dioxide from the air with their direct air capture machine and Carbfix mixes the carbon dioxide with water and pumps it deep underground.
The isolated carbon is then mixed with water and pumped deep underground, where it slowly turns into rock. Both technologies are powered by renewable energy sourced from a nearby geothermal power plant.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 °C, humanity needs to remove around 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the air every year by mid-century, and 17 billion tons by 2100. Climeworks believe direct air capture can play a significant role in achieving this and our company values have been created based on this vision.
