The Big Business of Burying Carbon

But it’s one thing to be able to pull carbon out of the air and quite another to be able to pull this off at scale. Burning fossil fuels generates energy. Capturing CO2 from the air requires energy. So long as this energy comes from burning fossil fuels, it will add to the carbon that has to be captured. A second major challenge is disposal. Once c

Carbon dioxide removal may be essential; it’s already built into the calculations of the IPCC. Under the current order, however, it’s also economically infeasible. How do you go about creating a $100 billion industry for a product no one wants to buy? The eggplants and the Snack-Gurken represented an admittedly jury-rigged solution. By selling its

A third part of the work involves carbon capture and geological injection underground, into rock formations where it can be stored safely for millennia.

As power stations go, geothermal plants are “clean.” Instead of burning fossil fuels, they rely on steam or superheated water pumped from underground, which is why they tend to be sited in volcanically active areas. Still, as Aradóttir explained to me, they, too, produce emissions. With the superheated water inevitably come unwanted gases, like hyd

Finally, there’s the issue of cost. Pulling CO2 from the air takes money. Right now, a lot of money. Climeworks charges $1,000 a ton to turn subscribers’ emissions to stone. I used up my allotment of twelve hundred pounds to fly one-way to Reykjavík, leaving all the rest of my emissions, including those from my return trip and my flight to Switzerl