A Swiss company, Climeworks opened the world’s first commercial Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility in Zurich, Switzerland on June 3, 2017. perched beside a waste incineration facility and a large greenhouse.
Emissions get negative
Now, Climeworks has joined forces with the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant in Iceland to create the world’s first “negative emission” power plant, reports New Atlas. The company is using a direct air-capture of carbon dioxide technology that has been under study since 2007.
The Carbfix Project
The CarbFix project in Iceland began in 2007 and is a collaboration of international scientists looking to find a way to lock away carbon dioxide by reacting it with basaltic rocks. Reykjavik Energy has supplied almost half the $10 million spent so far on CarbFix. Other sponsors include U.S. and Icelandic universities. In addition to finding a new method for permanent carbon dioxide storage, another objective of the project is to train scientists for years of work to come.
Using a process called “enhanced weathering,” carbonated water is injected into basalt rock, and hopefully, reacts with the calcium and magnesium present. As a result, CO2 is locked away with no dangerous byproducts. The project has produced some problems, particularly with injection-induced earthquakes.
The research team thought the solidification of the injected carbonated water would take years to finally solidify, but to their surprise, the CarbFix project showed in 2016 that 95 percent of the injected 250 tons of CO2 were solidified into calcite in two years, using 25 tons of water per ton of CO2.
“Our results show that between 95 and 98 percent of the injected CO2 was mineralized over the period of less than two years, which is amazingly fast,” says lead author on the CarbFix project, Dr. Juerg Matter. Combining the DAC technology along with the Carbfix mineralization process gives us a system that is not only carbon neutral but actually carbon negative, according to Climeworks.
“The potential of scaling-up our technology in combination with CO2 storage, is enormous,” says Climeworks CEO Christoph Gebald. “Not only here in Iceland but also in numerous other regions which have similar rock formations.” Using this technology makes Climeworks-CarbFix system in Iceland the world’s first verified ‘negative emissions’ plant.”
Keep in mind that this is just a pilot project. And while it is on a small-scale, the company plans to suck 50 tons of carbon dioxide from the air over a one-year period. This is equivalent to the CO produced by one American household. The one thing that bothers this writer is the amount of water needed to inject just one ton of CO2 – and that is 5 tons of water.
