Does the planet actually need millions of carbon capture machines to beat the climate crisis? There is an increasing number of companies globally that believe sucking out the potent greenhouse gas from the atmosphere can help.
From turning carbon dioxide into rock in Iceland to “putting oil back underground”, several companies have started unveiling their first devices. Their aim is to scale up rapidly and some have already sold their services to buyers like Bill Gates and Shopify.
But the prices remain a major source of concern. $600 per tonne and more doesn’t sound really feasible in the current circumstances, given that humans emit a staggering 36 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. This is problematic.
Carbon capture machines aren’t just financially challenging
But there is no reason to believe that direct air capture (Dac) – as the technology is called – cannot help remove carbon emissions from the air at just $100 per tonne in the next 10-20 years. The industry is still very young.
Nonetheless, Dac isn’t just financially challenging. Despite its potent climate heating properties, carbon dioxide makes up just 0.04% of air and so trapping a tonne of the gas means processing a volume of air equivalent to 800 Olympic pools.
It can’t be denied that the brutal climate crisis has turned into possibly the biggest threats humans have ever encountered. The human activities-led problem has been elevating global average temperatures to unprecedented levels and triggering deadly natural disasters.
