The plant will be powered by geothermal energy. Francesca Jones for The New York Times

David Gelles in the New York Times furthers our understanding of the expanding use of carbon capture, and the motives of the key actors utilizing this technology:

Can We Engineer Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis?

On a windswept Icelandic plateau, an international team of engineers and executives is powering up an innovative machine designed to alter the very composition of Earth’s atmosphere.

“Collector containers” where air is pulled in. Francesca Jones for The New York Times

If all goes as planned, the enormous vacuum will soon be sucking up vast quantities of air, stripping out carbon dioxide and then locking away those greenhouse gases deep underground in ancient stone — greenhouse gases that would otherwise continue heating up the globe.

Just a few years ago, technologies like these, that attempt to re-engineer the natural environment, were on the scientific fringe. They were too expensive, too impractical, too sci-fi. But with the dangers from climate change worsening, and the world failing to meet its goals of slashing greenhouse gas emissions, they are quickly moving to the mainstream among both scientists and investors, despite questions about their effectiveness and safety.

Researchers are studying ways to block some of the sun’s radiation. They are testing whether adding iron to the ocean could carry carbon dioxide to the sea floor. They are hatching plans to build giant parasols in space. And with massive facilities like the one in Iceland, they are seeking to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air.

As the scale and urgency of the climate crisis has crystallized, “people have woken up and are looking to see if there’s any miraculous deus ex machina that can help,” said Al Gore, the former vice president.

Since the dawn of the industrial age, humans have pumped huge volumes of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere in pursuit of industry and advancement. It amounted to a remaking of the planet’s delicately balanced atmosphere that today has transformed the world, intensifying heat, worsening droughts and storms and threatening human progress…

Read the whole article here.