A Swiss company has started work on the biggest carbon dioxide capturing plant in the world!
The new facility has been named Mammoth. It is located in Iceland where a similar plant called Orca already exists.
It’s hoped Mammoth will play an important role in tackling greenhouse gas emissions.
How does the carbon-catching machine work?
Well, direct air capture, or DAC, is a special type of technology that removes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air.
Climeworks, which is the company behind both the Orca and Mammoth plants, says the new facility will contain around 80 large blocks of fans and filters that suck in air and extract its CO2.
This will then be mixed with water and injected underground where a chemical reaction will turn it into rock.
The new Mammoth plant, which is set to be completed within the next 18 months to two years, will be able to remove 36,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air per year.
Why is a carbon-catching machine important?
There are currently 18 direct air capture facilities in the world according to the International Energy Agency. However, they aren’t able to collect enough CO2 to make a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon dioxide is what’s known as a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases are those in the Earth’s atmosphere which contribute to global warming. They do this by trapping the Sun’s heat, causing the Earth’s temperature to increase.
Global warming can have a direct impact on climate change, which is a big problem affecting communities all over the world.
