LONDON, England- Does the world need millions of machines sucking carbon dioxide directly out of the air to beat the climate crisis? There is a fast-growing number of companies that believe the answer is yes and that are deploying their first devices into the real world.

From turning CO2 into rock in Iceland, to capturing the breath of office workers, to “putting oil back underground”, their aim is to scale up rapidly and some have already sold their CO2 removal services to buyers including Bill Gates, Swiss Re, Shopify and Audi. Prices, however, are sky high – $600 per tonne and more. Given that humans emit about 36 billion tonnes a year, that is problematic. .

Direct air capture, as the technology is known, is challenging in more ways than just financially. Despite its potent climate heating properties, CO2 makes up just 0.04 percent of air and so trapping a tonne of the gas means processing a volume of air equivalent to 800 Olympic swimming pools.

To read more, click on https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/24/climate-crisis-machines-sucking-co2-from-the-air