World-first commercial carbon-capture plant opens in Switzerland

Its aim is to capture 1% of global CO₂ emissions by 2025

The new start-up Climeworks enters the fight against climate change by building giant air purifiers housed inside shipping containers which suck CO₂ directly from ambient air. Recently, the Swiss company installed three such containers on the roof of a waste incinerator in Hinwil, a small town just outside Zurich, launching the world’s first commercial CO₂ capture plant. Each container contains six CO₂ filters, and each filter is able to take 50 tons of CO₂ out of the air every year. The system also includes a large hot water storage tank and another two containers housing control equipment. “One CO₂ collector has the same footprint as a tree,” says Climeworks co-founder Jan Wurzbacher. “And it takes 1,000 times more carbon out of the air, in comparison to a tree that takes 50 kg. It’s a factor of a thousand. So in order to achieve the same, you would need 1,000 times less area than you would require for plants growing.”

How it works

The direct air capture (DAC) plant works by adsorption-desorption, with fans blowing ambient air over the capture material for a time period of two to three hours until it reaches its capacity. The captured CO₂ and water (which is a by-product of the process) are then released via heating. Through this process the CO₂ is transformed to a pure form of carbon that’s then extracted and sold for commercial uses in different markets (fizzy drinks, renewable fuels, underground storage). The plant is now capable of capturing 900 tons of carbon dioxide a year (roughly equivalent to the emissions of 200 cars) and the carbon is currently sold to a nearby greenhouse, where it is used as fertilizer for fruits and vegetables.

The procedure is currently not economically viable, but the firm expressed confidence that they could bring down the cost from $600 per ton of the greenhouse gas to $200 in three to five years with a longer term target of $100. “With this plant, we can show costs of roughly $600 per ton, which is, of course, if we compare it to a market price, very high. But, if we compare it to studies which have been done previously, projecting the costs of direct air capture, it’s a sensation”, says Christoph Gebald, one of the company’s founders. This is indeed a significant improvement taking into consideration that previous research into the idea had assumed a cost of $1,000 per ton.

Their ambitious plan

‘The vision of our company is to capture 1% of global emissions by 2025, which is super ambitious, but which is something that is feasible,” Mr Gebald said. However he admits that this goal is currently not attainable and cannot be achieved by commercial means only. Political will is necessary, for example a price on carbon would play a positive role. The European Union and some other countries around the world have put a price on carbon for some major emitters, but environmentalists have complained it is too low and fails to reflect its true impact.

Climeworks in numbers

· 300 tons of CO₂: Annual removal capacity of one shipping container-sized unit fitted with six Climeworks filters

· 225 million tons of CO₂: Climeworks goal for CO₂ capture in 2025, equal to nearly 1% of global emissions

· 100 units: Annual capacity of Climeworks’ current production line

· 750,000 units: Number of units that would be needed to capture 225Mt CO₂ in 2025

· 200 cars: Equivalent annual CO₂ emissions that would be captured by a single Climeworks unit

· $700 per car: Annual cost to remove car CO₂ emissions from the air, at current costs