The Mammoth facility heralded as the largest carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) facility of its kind, commenced operations this week atop a dormant volcano in Iceland. The facility, featuring 72 industrial fans, is the brainchild of Swiss start-up Climeworks. It aims to remove 36,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere annually, burying it underground, and hopes to demonstrate the technology’s potential in combating global warming.
This initiative significantly boosts Climeworks’ existing project, Orca, which also focuses on extracting CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Mammoth’s strategic location, just 50 kilometers (31 miles) from an active volcano, was chosen for its proximity to the Hellisheidi geothermal energy plant. This plant is crucial for powering Mammoth’s fans and heating chemical filters required to extract CO2 using water vapor.
The CO2 is separated from the steam, compressed in a hangar with extensive piping infrastructure, and then dissolved in water. The resulting solution is pumped underground using a process described by Bergur Sigfusson, chief system development officer for Carbfix (the company behind the process), akin to a “giant SodaStream”. The water is injected 700 meters (2,300 feet) below the surface into volcanic basalt, which constitutes 90 percent of Iceland’s subsoil. Here, it reacts with magnesium, calcium, and iron in the rock to form crystals—solid reservoirs of CO2.
Jan Wurzbacher, co-founder and co-chief of Climeworks, stressed the importance of DACCS (direct air capture with carbon storage) in achieving global “carbon neutrality” by 2050. He highlighted the need to remove between six to 16 billion tonnes of CO2 from the air annually. Climeworks plans to ramp up its CO2 capture capacity from 4,000 to 40,000 tonnes per year after Mammoth reaches full capacity, a process expected to take three years.
Despite its potential, DACCS remains a minor player in most climate models due to its high cost. Its scalability depends on the availability of renewable energy sources. Climeworks has led the way with the first two plants in the world to move beyond the pilot stage, albeit at a cost of around $1,000 per tonne captured. Wurzbacher anticipates this cost will decrease to $300 by 2030.
Looking ahead, more than 20 new infrastructure projects, combining direct capture and storage, with a total capacity of around 10 million tonnes, are slated for development by 2030. Christoph Gebald, Climeworks co-founder and co-chief, estimates the need for approximately $10 billion over the next decade to deploy assets in the United States, Canada, Norway, Oman, and Kenya—ten times the amount the company has raised to date.
The path forward is multifaceted, requiring cost optimization without impeding the increasing demand for renewable energy, continued innovation, and substantial public and private funding. To this end, Carbfix is currently piloting the use of seawater for CO2 mineralization near a port constructed by the Icelandic company to receive carbon dioxide from other nations.