Mammoth World’s Largest Direct Air Capture Plant Begins Operations in Iceland

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Climeworks AG

Hans Turck GmbH & Co. KG

Glatt Ingenieurtechnik GmbH

Pörner Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH

Located in Iceland, Climeworks’ direct air capture and storage plant – mammoth is claimed to be the world’s largest direct air capture plant. With a nameplate capture capacity of up to 36,000 tons of CO₂ per year, the plant is modular is design.

Hellisheiði/Iceland – The largest direct air capture and storage plant, named Mammoth, starts operations in Iceland. It is the second commercial facility of Climeworks in Iceland and is about ten times bigger than its predecessor, Orca. Mammoth will bring new high-quality carbon removal capacity to the market for Climeworks to provide to its customers.

Climeworks broke ground on Mammoth in June 2022. The plant is built in a modular design, with twelve of its total 72 collector containers currently installed onsite. The plant will be completed throughout 2024. It is designed for a nameplate capture capacity of up to 36,000 tons of CO₂ per year.

Mammoth has successfully started to capture its first CO₂. Climeworks uses renewable energy to power its direct air capture process, which requires low-temperature heat like boiling water. The geothermal energy partner On Power in Iceland provides the energy necessary for this process. Once the CO₂ is released from the filters, storage partner Carbfix transports the CO₂ underground, where it reacts with basaltic rock through a natural process, which transforms into stone, and remains permanently stored. Climeworks verifies and certifies the whole process by independent third parties.

“Starting operations of our Mammoth plant is another proof point in Climeworks’ scale-up journey to megaton capacity by 2030 and gigaton by 2050. It is exemplary of our continuous R&D investments to further optimize our technology and gain maturity through on-the-ground experience. Constructing multiple real-world plants in rapid sequences makes Climeworks the most deployed carbon removal company with direct air capture at the core,” states Jan Wurzbacher, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Climeworks.

Climeworks looks back on seven years of field experience. Its engineers process close to 200 million data points daily. The derived learnings were applied to Mammoth which increases plant performance, efficiency, recovery and ensure better availability to maximize CO₂ capture through the year. With Mammoth, Climeworks will gain further operational field experience, and its 180 science and R&D experts will continue large-scale testing and development.

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