Located in Iceland, Mammoth is the world's largest power plant

Mammoth captures CO2 and turns it into stone.

It's called Mammoth and it's the world's largest power plant to capture CO₂, located in Iceland. It went into operation on May 8, 2024 in Hellisheiði, Iceland. It's a direct air capture and storage (DAC+S) power plant of gigantic size: it's around ten times larger than its predecessor, Orca.

The DAC+S is a technology designed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
It works like a large air purifier: powerful fans draw air in and pass it through selective chemical filters, which capture CO₂ while letting other gases through.

The plant uses renewable energy, including geothermal heat supplied by partner ON Power, to power filters that extract CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, this is still an expensive and energy-intensive technology. A lot of clean energy is needed to move large volumes of air and regenerate the filters, without which climate balance would not be positive.

This is why today, DAC+S is not seen as a universal solution, but as a complementary system, useful for eliminating emissions that cannot be reduced by other means.
 

(©GreenMe.it/Translation and adaptation: MP- The Global Nature/Pic: Unsplash)