Climeworks AG, a Swiss based startup is coming up with a direct air capture (DAC) plant named “Mammoth” with a capacity to suck 36,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. With construction already going on in Iceland, the project is set to be functional in a span of 18 to 24 months. The company established its first commercial plant capturing CO2 from air back in 2017 and ever since is rigorously focusing on developing such facilities to curb CO2 emissions globally.

The mammoth plant will have a set of 80 large blocks of fans and filters to extract CO2 from air which is subsequently handled by Carbfix, an Iceland based carbon capture technology firm that injects it underground by mixing it with water followed by a chemical reaction turning the entire mixture into stone.

This being the second DAC plant from the company, it exceeds the capacity of the existing one by 30,000 tonnes, making it the world’s largest plant in terms of capacity. The company also aims to come up with another plant with a capacity to capture half a million tonnes of CO2 yearly post commencement of this plant. Apart from these short term goals, the company is also ambitious to capture millions of tonnes of CO2 by 2030 and exceed 1 billion tonnes of CO2 capture by 2050.

Globally, there are 18 such facilities already helping capture CO2 emissions yet more of these setups will be essential looking at the incrementing climate crisis despite being costly. Climeworks is thus majorly focused on developing more efficient facilities cost effectively along with raising funds from investors to keep in line with their future goals.