Iceland is a rustic stuffed with fascinating statistics. Known for its distinctive local weather and distinctive nationwide character, it has the highest variety of writers per capita in the world: one in ten residents has revealed a guide. It’s additionally a frontrunner in renewable vitality consumption, with almost 100% of its vitality coming from geothermal or hydroelectric sources. Recently, Iceland has set one other report by internet hosting the world’s largest carbon sequestration plant. Read on to find extra about carbon sequestration and the intriguing options of Iceland’s new plant.
What is carbon sequestration and the way is it achieved?
Before diving into the Arctic set up, let’s discover carbon sequestration, an important method for lowering atmospheric carbon dioxide ranges. Carbon sequestration helps decrease world temperatures and fight local weather change by capturing and storing CO₂ from the environment. This course of reduces CO₂ focus, serving to to mitigate world warming. It is significant for attaining the CO2 emission discount targets set by the Paris Agreement.
Currently, three fundamental strategies are used for carbon sequestration:
- Carbon seize and storage (CCS): This methodology captures CO₂ emissions from industrial and energy vegetation earlier than they enter the environment. The CO₂ is then transported by pipelines and saved in underground geological formations, like depleted oil and gasoline fields or saline aquifers, the place it may be safely saved for hundreds of years.
- Biological sequestration: This method makes use of pure processes to seize and retailer carbon. Reforestation, sustainable soil administration in agriculture, and restoring marine ecosystems like mangroves and seagrass meadows enable vegetation and soils to soak up and retain CO₂ from the environment, integrating it into biomass and soil naturally.
- Direct air seize (DAC) applied sciences: These cutting-edge applied sciences use mechanical gadgets to extract CO₂ instantly from the air. The captured CO₂ might be saved underground or reused in the manufacturing of commercial supplies and artificial fuels, providing a versatile answer for lowering atmospheric CO₂ ranges.
Project Mammoth, the carbon sequestration plant in Iceland
Of these strategies, Iceland has chosen the third choice, using DAC applied sciences to seize atmospheric carbon. Named the Mammoth undertaking, the plant started operations in May 2024. Designed to seize as much as 36,000 tons of CO₂ yearly, it’s the largest plant of its type worldwide. Although the expertise remains to be in its early phases, its predecessor, the Orca plant, captures round 4,000 tons per yr.
Iceland is dedicated to utilizing renewable vitality in all its processes, and the Mammoth plant is not any exception. Thus, it makes use of geothermal vitality from the Hellisheidi energy plant to energy its operations and decrease its carbon footprint. CO₂ seize is achieved by 72 assortment items that filter the air, take up the CO₂, after which combine it with water to inject it into underground basalt formations. Here, the CO₂ reacts with the basalt and is mineralized, changing into stone and remaining completely saved, as we informed you on this article on carbon mineralization.
The Swiss firm behind this undertaking goals to scale up this expertise to seize megatons of CO₂ by 2030 and gigatons by 2050, considerably contributing to world local weather targets. The expertise has already attracted curiosity from nations corresponding to Norway, Kenya, Canada, and the USA. For instance, the US plans to make investments over $600 million in creating carbon sequestration applied sciences.
Currently, the fundamental problem for DAC expertise is lowering its prices and bettering vitality effectivity. Capturing one ton of CO₂ prices about $1,000, however this determine is predicted to lower to $300 by 2030. Meanwhile, ongoing efforts to cut back emissions of CO₂ and different greenhouse gases by renewable vitality sources stay essential.
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