Can we really capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

The answer

Direct air capture (DAC) technology uses chemical processes to extract CO₂ directly from ambient air. Climeworks' Orca plant in Iceland, the world's largest when it opened in 2021, captures 4,000 tons of CO₂ annually and stores it underground where it mineralizes into rock. However, global emissions exceed 37 billion tons per year, meaning current DAC capacity offsets about 0.00001% of emissions. The technology is extremely energy-intensive and costs $600–1,000 per ton, though costs are declining. Scaling DAC to meaningful levels remains one of the defining technological challenges of the century.