Category: Technology_CN

Swiss start-up Climeworks AG said its second large-scale direct air capture (DAC) plant will be built in Iceland in 18-24 months, and have capacity to suck 36,000 tonnes of CO2 per year from the air.

Last fall, an emerging climate solution hit a milestone when the Swiss company Climeworks switched on its “Orca” plant, an array of fans and filters that capture carbon dioxide directly from the air. Built in Iceland, it is the largest plant of its kind in the world, designed to filter 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year so it can be permanently stored underground.

In the world of green tech, few sectors are hotter than direct air capture—or DAC. Think giant fans that draw planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and then store the polluting material away for good, usually deep underground or on the bottom of the ocean.

In recent months, the Biden administration, Elon Musk and companies such as Alphabet and Meta have poured millions — in some cases, billions — into investment funds, research proposals, grant opportunities and competitions to develop the method. Scientists argue carbon capture, which takes carbon dioxide from the air and stores it deep underground, has the potential to quickly slow Earth’s rapidly warming climate.

“Creative, interactive communication tools like virtual reality experiences offer a powerful way to spark conversations and action around climate change by helping show how a global-scale issue shows up in a very real way in our own communities,” said project leader Heidi Roop, who began the effort at the UW Climate Impacts Group and is now at the University of Minnesota.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $39 million in awards for 18 projects seeking to develop technologies that can transform buildings into net carbon storage structures. Led by DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), selectees for the Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere (HESTIA) program will prioritize overcoming barriers associated with carbon-storing buildings, including scarce, expensive and geographically limited building materials. Decarbonization goals for the HESTIA program mirror President Biden’s plan to reach zero emissions by 2050 and aim to increase the total amount of carbon stored in buildings to create carbon sinks, which absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than released during the construction process.

The planet changes quickly: More than half a million acres are burning in New Mexico. A megadrought is shrinking Lake Mead. The Alps are turning from white to green. Development continues to expand, from cities to massive solar farms. All of these changes impact the Earth’s climate and biodiversity. But in the past, such changes have been difficult to track in detail as they’re happening.

The idea has been gaining traction with some scientists and policymakers in recent years, leading others to respond with concern. At the beginning of 2022, a group of these scientists and scholars launched an open letter calling for an international non-use agreement on solar geoengineering.

Historic demonstration featured Amogy’s ammonia-powered, zero-emissions energy system in use in a heavy-duty vehicle for the first time.

From a small hill in the southern French region of Provence, you can see two suns. One has been blazing for four-and-a-half billion years and is setting. The other is being built by thousands of human minds and hands, and is — far more slowly — rising. The last of the real sun’s evening rays cast a magical glow over the other — an enormous construction site that could solve the biggest existential crisis in human history.