The Orca plant: The largest carbon removal facility in the world
The world’s largest carbon capture plant, located near Reykjavik in Iceland, has become operational in a bid to build momentum for technology as a critical ingredient to fight climate change.
Named ‘Orca,’ the system uses state-of-the-art fans, filters, heaters, and geothermal energy to extract 4,400 tons of carbon dioxide from the air and pump it underground into caverns. In the caverns, the carbon dioxide gas will mix with water and cool before turning into stone.
Climeworks, the company behind Orca, built the first commercial carbon capture facility in Switzerland in 2017. This facility captures 900 tons of carbon dioxide every year, with the facility using the gas in greenhouses and selling it to carbonated drink producers.
Orca is expected to increase the Earth’s annual carbon capture capacity by 40%, with Climeworks founders hoping to remove 550,000 tons of carbon dioxide by the end of this decade.
Climeworks are not the only company to have plans. One facility is due in Scotland by 2026 to capture up to one million metric tons, with a plant planned in Texas capturing another one million tons a year to pump oil.
