Iceland opens world's first commercial facility for removing CO2 from the atmosphere

When the world’s biggest facility for sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and burying it underground opened in rural Iceland last week, it may have sounded like a miracle cure for climate change had finally arrived.

But while the first commercial carbon removal and sequestration factory represents a breakthrough in the goal of achieving net-zero global emissions by mid-century, as well as a beacon for eventually removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, the technology won’t be economically viable at a wide-scale for some time. Crucially, scientists say, it will only prevent catastrophic climate change if it is used in addition to, rather than instead of, massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and the use of other technologies that are already cheaper.

“It’s a baby step, but it’s a baby step that will be remembered if the industry ever develops into a mature industry,” David Morrow, the director of research for the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University, told Yahoo News.

First, it’s important to understand what carbon removal is for and how it differs from the older and more widely deployed technology of carbon capture. Carbon capture is when emissions are captured at the source — a coal-fired power plant’s smokestack, for example. The CO2 can then be either reused for something else, or, if the goal is fighting climate change, stored underground. There are already natural gas processing plants in Wyoming and Texas, for example, that capture millions of tons of carbon dioxide annually and inject the gas into oil fields to force the oil toward wells. (The net result of that process is lower emissions, but not enough to reach the targets the IPCC says are needed.)

The new plant in Iceland, on the other hand, performs the more challenging task of finding carbon in the atmosphere and removing it.

Ben Reilly wrote:Quill, I don't think that plant can suck all the CO2 out of the air above Iceland Besides, the wind just blows more in anyway.

Plants like this one will only be able to remove a tiny amount of CO2 from the air -- it's going to take similar facilities all over the world to really make a difference.

When it comes to vegetation, it can't breathe as much CO2 as you throw at it any more than we could breathe all the oxygen you could throw at us -- vegetation has a limit to how much CO2 it can consume.