Why would you capture from the atmosphere when you’ve got so much coming out of power stations and industrial plants? It just makes sense to go for the high concentrations first,” he said. Peter Styring, professor of chemical engineering and chemistry at the University of Sheffield, told CNN: “Unless you’ve got a full eco-toxic study, then you don’t know what it’s going to do, even at small concentrations.”ĭirect air capture also remains expensive and inefficient, Styring said. Others remain concerned about negative impacts on the oceans, which are already under pressure from climate change, pollution and other human activity. “Disposing of large tonnages of sodium bicarbonate in the ocean could be legally defined as ‘dumping,’ which is banned by international treaties,” Haszeldine said. The process is a modification of one we already know, he said, “which is easier to understand, scale-up and develop than something totally new.”īut there may be regulatory hurdles to surmount. Stuart Haszeldine, professor of carbon capture and storage at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the study, told CNN that the chemistry was “novel and elegant.” (Photo by Halldor KOLBEINS / AFP) (Photo by HALLDOR KOLBEINS/AFP via Getty Images) Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Imagesįirst on CNN: DOE announces multibillion-dollar project to kickstart a carbon dioxide removal industry in US Fans in front of the collector draw in ambient air and release it, largely purified of CO2, through ventilators at the back. Climeworks factory is in ICELAND containers similar to those used in maritime transport are stacked up in pairs, 10 metres (33 feet) high. TOPSHOT - Climeworks factory with it's fans in front of the collector, drawing in ambient air and release it, as largely purified CO2 through ventilators at the back is seen at the Hellisheidi power plant near Reykjavik on October 11, 2021. SenGupta’s idea is that direct air capture plants can be located offshore, giving them access to abundant amounts of seawater for the process. “If you put all the CO2 from the atmosphere, emitted every day – or every year – into the ocean, the increase in concentration would be very, very minor,” he said. The oceans “are infinite sinks,” SenGupta said. Once the carbon dioxide is captured, it can then be turned into sodium bicarbonate – baking soda – using seawater and released into the ocean at a small concentration. This material can be produced easily and cheaply and would help drive down the costs of direct air capture, he added. The result is an absorbent “which can remove CO2 from the atmosphere at ultra-dilute concentration at a capacity which is two to three times greater than existing absorbents,” SenGupta said. The team have used copper to modify the absorbent material used in direct air capture. The new technique laid out in the study can help tackle those problems, said SenGupta. That’s equivalent to the carbon pollution produced by fewer than 800 cars over a year. It’s a “significant hurdle,” Arup SenGupta, a professor at Lehigh University and a study author, told CNN.Įven the biggest facilities can only remove relatively small amounts and it costs several hundred dollars to remove each ton of carbon.Ĭlimeworks’ direct air removal project in Iceland is the largest facility, according to the company, and can capture up to 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. This means removing it directly from the air is challenging and expensive. The problem with direct air capture is that while carbon dioxide may be a very potent planet-heating gas, its concentrations are very small – it makes up about 0.04% of air. It's a big risk.īut another way, which this study focuses on, is “ direct air capture.” This involves sucking carbon pollution directly out of the atmosphere and then storing it, often by injecting it into the ground. The world is banking on giant carbon-sucking fans to clean our climate mess. Climework's Orca project at the Hellisheiði Geothermal Power Plant in Iceland Temujin Doran/CNN
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