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Earth

Climate Startup Removes CO2 From the Air In Industry First 131

Posted by BeauHD from the long-time-coming dept.
Swiss company Climeworks announced Thursday that it has successfully taken carbon dioxide out of the air and put it in the ground where it will eventually turn into rock in a process that has been verified by an independent third-party auditor. It the first time a company has successfully taken carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, put it underground to be locked away permanently and delivered that permanent carbon removal to a paying customer. CNBC reports: The development has been a long time coming. Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher co-founded Climeworks in 2009 as a spinoff of ETH Zurich, the main technical university in Switzerland's largest city. They have been scaling the technology for direct carbon removal, wherein machines vacuum greenhouse gasses out of the air. have all bought future carbon removal services from Climeworks in a bid to help kick-start the nascent industry. Now Climeworks is actually removing the carbon dioxide and putting it underground in a process that has been certified by DNV, an independent auditor.

The cost of carbon dioxide removal and storage for these corporate clients is confidential and depends on what quantity of carbon dioxide the companies want to have removed and over what period of time. But the general price for carbon removal runs to several hundred dollars per ton. Individuals can also pay to Climeworks to remove carbon dioxide to offset their personal emissions.

Climeworks' largest carbon dioxide removal facility is located in Iceland, where it partners with CarbFix, which stores the gas underground. CarbFix dissolves carbon dioxide in water then intermingles that mixture with basalt rock formations. Natural processes convert the material to solid carbonate minerals in about two years. In June, Climeworks announced it had begun construction of its second commercial-sized plant in Iceland that will capture and store 36,000 metric tons per year of carbon dioxide.
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Climate Startup Removes CO2 From the Air In Industry First More

Climate Startup Removes CO2 From the Air In Industry First

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  • Would someone please tell me why they don't just break down the CO2 into C and O2, release the O2 back into the air, and then sell the carbon to whoever needs it? It's a solid, technically you could just stuff it away somewhere like a closed salt mine, it's not hazardous waste so it shouldn't be too hard to find a place that will accept it?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Would someone please tell me why they don't just break down the CO2 into C and O2, release the O2 back into the air, and then sell the carbon to whoever needs it? It's a solid, technically you could just stuff it away somewhere like a closed salt mine, it's not hazardous waste so it shouldn't be too hard to find a place that will accept it?

      The problem with carbon capture is volume. The earth is a very big place, lots of air. Removing thousands of tons of carbon sounds impressive, but it is like removing a few drops of water from the ocean. Putting less carbon into the air in the first place is the only thing that will actually work.

      • But what about removing it from water - ie, the ocean? In fact, we could piggy back off water desalination plants and attach a carbon extraction process.

        Power it with renewables and just let it churn.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by v1 ( 525388 )

        The cycle starts with separating H2 from O, and binding it usually to C. That gives you HydroCarbons. Half the energy is in the gas, the other half is actually in the O2 in the air. Combining the two is what releases the energy. (most people seem to overlook or not understand the O2 side of the energy equation)

        So yes, if you crack the CO2 it's not a lot different than cracking H2O to get H and O. (or as an intermediate step in desalinization) Yes it takes energy, but the fossil fuel we've already burne

    • I've wondered the same thing. There are so many unemployed folks out there, we could just give them scalpels and put them to work slicing the carbon off of carbon dioxide and tossing it in a bin. It solves two problems at once.

    • We already have that technology: plants and trees do it all day long. They are a major atmospheric carbon sink and oxygen source.

      Industrially, it's very hard to split CO2. CO2 is the end product of energy production, so going backwards costs energy. It can be done, but it's a tall order to do it on a large enough scale to make a dent in the entire planet's CO2.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      sell the carbon to whoever needs it

      Coal! Woo hoo!

    • Would someone please tell me why they don't just break down the CO2 into C and O2, release the O2 back into the air, and then sell the carbon to whoever needs it?

      These are covalent bonded and it requires a lot of energy to strip 1 O(leaving CO), and great deal more to strip 2 Os.

    • Because we burn so much fossil fuel that that's not practical. And because the amount of energy we need to do that at scale would require burning more fossil fuels. If instead we tried to build renewables to do that that would be extremely silly because we could just use those renewable energy sources to power our civilization and not have to worry about any of this.

      All of these stories about carbon capture are just the oil industry trying to trick us into thinking we don't need to make any changes to o

    • Breaking CO2 apart isn't easy. Because you're not breaking it, you're tearing it. You're forcing it apart. And if that's not strong enough a wording, it essentially means you have to pump in a LOT of energy to do that. CO2 is a pretty stable molecule that doesn't want to be broken apart.

      The problem is not storing or selling that carbon. Hey, it's a great fuel with a lot of KJ you could get by burning it to CO2. Guess where that energy would have to come from when you try to turn CO2 into carbon.

  • Carbonite (Score:3)

    by OrangAsm ( 678078 ) on Friday January 13, 2023 @10:30PM (#63207360)

    I wonder how Han Solo feels about this.

  • What is the energetic cost per ton to do this? If there was a way to do this with solar power we could call it a Terrestrial Reclaim of Expended Energy or a T.R.E.E for short. Were these devices to become ubiquitous we could call them tree/s.

    • The problem with trees is that they need good growing conditions. And then we need to make sure they are buried and trapped below ground - essentially forever.
      • Different Trees are adapted to various environment. As such, picking trees to the environment is what is required for growing conditions.

        But, you are spot-on about dealing with the tree. If we use it in.a house, furniture, etc is fine, but what we need to avoid is burning it. Sadly, Europe pushed the idea that burning wood, veggies, etc is fine, even though it requires more energy than.what it gives.

    • What is the energetic cost per ton to do this? If there was a way to do this with solar power we could call it a Terrestrial Reclaim of Expended Energy or a T.R.E.E for short. Were these devices to become ubiquitous we could call them tree/s.

      This whole game if funded by dopey carbon credit schemes where you get more credits for permanent removal of carbon from atmosphere. For schemes where there is leakage over time you get less points so T.R.E.E. = bad.

      This is why technologies such as biomass + CCS are hot because they count as net negative carbon removal. This same technology at a coal plant will win you some points but not as many because the best you can get to there is 0 not negative.

      This is where all that ESG/carbon tax money goes to di

  • the general price for carbon removal runs to several hundred dollars per ton.

    Every product should be priced with the added amount it costs to remove the CO2 expelled to make/ship it from the atmosphere. You would need to ramp up the percentage paid so that industrial sectors would adapt but it really wouldn't take much to enable "the free market" to favor non-polluting companies.

    • Well, that's what the carbon tax was about. The threat of carbon taxes has sunk many a left/centre government. Just look at Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull. Australia only just seems to have gotten over the Murdoch scare campaigns.

      • That's also part of why it's an incredibly stupid idea. In order for any local economy to not sink itself into oblivion, basically the whole world needs to do the same thing. And even if you can get the whole world to agree to it, getting each country to enforce it and not just pretend to enforce it is another matter entirely. People who don't have their head in the clouds and realize this will naturally vote against it.

        Besides that, if you think the COVID supply chain issues were bad, you haven't seen anyt

    • Nope. Just put a tax on all goods based on where the worst component comes from.
      This would do more to stop emissions than anything else. In addition, it would stop it quickly.

    • Some of us have been in favour of this for DECADES.

      Look at the carbon impact of animal products.

      This is a huge portion of the reality as to why this will not be adopted any time soon.

      But I think it's a stellar idea and would actually have a huge impact.

      • Why do I get the feeling that you're one of those dweebs that go to steakhouses and demand that they serve vegan meals to accommodate you?

        • How is this not a trolling comment?

          But I can play too: why do I get the feeling you're one of those dweebs who think they're 'bombarded' with 'vegan propaganda' when you're one of the people constantly harassing vegans and making an issue of it?

          But for the record, no. I prefer giving my money to businesses who align with my values.

          And in the context of the OPs post, there's a LOT of carbon sunk into animal products, much much more than plant foods, and if they were taxed accordingly, very few would be order

          • But for the record, no. I prefer giving my money to businesses who align with my values.

            Who said anything about giving money to them? I'm talking about this:

            https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]

            Typically, when somebody goes around advertising they they're vegan by e.g. wearing it on their shirts, or in this case, your username, and won't ever shut up about it, this is what I think of. Just as annoying as missionaries. For context, they had already been doing that for months before this video was shot. Though in the end, all they did was give him more business. A LOT more.

    • Every product should be priced with the added amount it costs to remove the CO2 expelled to make/ship it from the atmosphere. You would need to ramp up the percentage paid so that industrial sectors would adapt but it really wouldn't take much to enable "the free market" to favor non-polluting companies.

      Give a person a metric and they will find a way to abuse it as we've seen with many carbon/ESG schemes turning out to be pointless scams. The proceeds of carbon tax have little chance of being spent properly and productively.

  • The ocean absorbs billions of tons of CO2. Surely it would be easier to process CO2 that's slightly more concentrated than in the air.
    • As water heats up, it holds LESS CO2 ( and other gasses ). So, if we build nuclear power plants by the ocean, and do desalination, along with gas and element capture, we can remove CO2 and bury it, remove lithium, Uranium, various elements, etc, while getting clean energy, clean water, etc.

  • Yeah. No. (Score:3)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Saturday January 14, 2023 @12:54AM (#63207532) Journal
    I remember when European 'auditors' claimed that western Europe buying land in eastern Europe and planting trees was removing large amounts of CO2. Then it turned out that:
    1) it does not remove anywhere close to what the nations and auditor's claimed
    2) that the majority of claimed buy/reforest was false. Some was already forested, and the rest of the buys did not happen.

    All in all, the only solution is cut emissions on our GHG and to tax goods based on where the worst part comes from.

    • The solution is to stop thinking there's one solution. There's not. We should be planting trees. We should be reducing our primary energy consumption. We should be investing R&D into direct air capture of carbon. We should be developing CCS. We should be looking to alternative means of production and consumption.

      The only thing we should not do is discount any of the above due to some fuckwits using it to run a scam (like the tree planting thing you mention)

  • this project sequesters 36,000 tons of carbon a year. one power system in south africa generates 50,000 tons of carbon a DAY. the scale here doesn't pencil out unless you cover entire small countries with these, and it ignores the cost of building these plants. the much-much cheaper solution is probably to emit less, and probably the removal is going to have to be biological and exponential in nature - think algae, or phytoplankton shells, that sort of thing. even at a cost of hundreds of dollars a ton

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kremmy ( 793693 )
      It means we needed to start building them yesterday because we do need that level of coverage.
      The more you insist on delaying it, the harder it will be.

  • I planted a tree in my back yard -- keeps storing more carbon every year.

  • The proposed plant is intended to remote 36,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.
    This is, possibly deliberately, one millionth of the world annual total of about 36 billion tonnes.

    It's going to take an awful lot of these plants!

  • Is that sensible? (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday January 14, 2023 @07:36AM (#63207922)

    How much energy does it cost to capture a ton of CO2? And how much CO2 does a power plant produce to produce that amount of power?

    Hint: More.

  • Surely it'd be better to sequester the carbon as fuel. Then carbon fuels become the ultimate chemical battery.

  • The question nobody is asking (Score:3)

    by rcb1974 ( 654474 ) on Saturday January 14, 2023 @08:58AM (#63207988) Homepage
    What level of atmospheric CO2 maximizes the human carrying capacity of Earth? Higher CO2 concentrations speed crop growth, warm the earth thus lengthening growing seasons, increasing precipitation, and making vast swaths of frozen land in places like Siberia and Canada more farm able. Also water pipelines could make hotter dry places fertile. Bottom line: if higher amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere will ultimately sustain greater numbers of humans, then by reducing CO2 emissions we are actually _harming_ future generations!

  • Rockyfield carbon? (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday January 14, 2023 @09:36AM (#63208044)

    Isn't that called 'coal'?

  • How long can we 'permanently' remove CO2 from the air? It's a closed system right? So what are the long term effects of sequestration?

    Yeah, didn't think anyone had even looked at that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      Nature have sequestrated carbon for hundreds of millions of years in the form of oil and coal, pretty long term I would say. That's what we are releasing right now, and it seems that we won't have to wait millions of years to see the effects of that, and they don't look good, so the idea is to put it back underground.

  • Trees? (Score:2)

    by drwho ( 4190 )

    I suppose this is obvious, but vegetation already does this, without human intervention. I am surrounded by forest, which is pretty good at the task. I'll just stick with the old methods.

  • Iceland is essentially one immense volcano, which doesn't have a thermostat. So what happens when the storage field's temperature rises past a certain point? Carbonate minerals release the CO2.

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