System for removing carbon dioxide from the air

Now many companies are concerned about the fight against climate change. This problem is relevant all over the world and one of the solutions is the direct capture of carbon dioxide from the air. This method can be performed even during the period of greenhouse gas emissions directly at the production site. Recently, one of the largest installations to remove carbon dioxide from the air was installed in Iceland. Although some experts argue that this method is simply used by industrial giants in order not to slow down the burning of fossil resources.

The installation itself is called “Orca” and consists of eight containers combined into one system. At the same time, each of them has a powerful blowing ventilation system. It has filters that capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mix it with water. After that, the resulting mixture enters special underground storage facilities, where it will remain for many years.

The Orca complex was created by the Swiss company Climeworks, together with Microsoft. Now the installation is located near the capital of Iceland – Reykjavik. It works at the expense of geothermal sources and is characterized by minimal greenhouse gas emissions. This project can be called almost completely “green”. Orca captures carbon dioxide from the air and does not emit harmful emissions during operation.

The main disadvantage of the installation is that it does not differ in power. Because of this, one complex is only enough to capture no more than 4 thousand tons of carbon dioxide per year. The figure seems big, but it only represents the amount of emissions generated by 870 cars. Considering that there are now more than two billion vehicles in operation in the world, one can imagine how effectively Kosatka is coping with environmental protection. And now there are only 15 similar installations, which in total are capable of absorbing up to 9 thousand tons of carbon dioxide per year. But just one Orca increases the amount of CO2 absorption by almost 50 percent.

This achievement is now more important than ever. After all, the governments of most developed countries are already talking about the need to develop an industry to capture carbon dioxide. It is planned to make sure that by 2100 there is enough capacity to remove up to a thousand gigatonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere. But not everyone is optimistic about this. Some seasoned experts believe that this is just a ploy by mining companies who simply want not to reduce the volume of extraction of fuel from the earth. They will simply pretend that the cleaning plants help the environment.

Experts believe that one should try not to create capturing installations, which are risky and simply not effective. Instead, everything possible should be done to move away from fossil fuels, not to reduce the harm from emissions.

In light of this, one can recall the news that a study was recently conducted on the effectiveness of blue hydrogen in terms of decarbonization. Scientists were able to find out that as a result of obtaining this fuel, more greenhouse gases are emitted than when burning natural gas that is familiar to everyone. This indicates that not all attempts to create something new in the fight for the environment will be successful. However, there is hope that the Orca will actually be an effective system for capturing CO2 from the air.