Climeworks maintains that Orca, once it’s running around the clock, will remove up to 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. And there isn’t much reason to doubt the facility can achieve this feat. For one thing, the technology for the plant, known as direct air capture, or DAC, is a variation on ideas that have been utilized over the course of half a century in submarines and spacecraft: Employ chemical agents to “scrub” the excess carbon dioxide out of the air; dispose of it; then repeat. More to the point, perhaps, is the fact that Climeworks has already built smaller, less sophisticated plants in mainland Europe, which have in turn pulled hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide per year from ambient air.
Carbon capture—dream or nightmare—could be coming. Or not.
Attribution: Art Hunter