Capable of removing 36,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, an amount similar to taking 8,000 petrol cars off the road, Mammoth is almost 10 times larger than Climeworks’ first commercial plant called Orca.
It costs Climeworks almost $1,000 (£774) to capture and store a tonne of CO2. To make money it sells carbon offsets to clients.
“Mammoth has already sold close to a third of its lifetime capacity,” states Mr Chan, who believes technological improvements and scaling up, will drive down future costs.
“By the end of the decade, we want to be at a cost of capture of between $300 and $400.”
Among its customers are Microsoft, H&M, JP Morgan Chase, Shopify and Lego; as well as over 20,000 individuals who subscribe on Climeworks’ website.
“We’re following the science,” Microsoft’s senior director of energy and carbon removal, Brian Marrs, previously told the BBC.
“Carbon removal has to be part of the equation. You can’t reduce emissions that are already in the atmosphere, you have to remove them.”
Eventually Mammoth will be dwarfed by US-based Project Cypress, which breaks ground in 2026, and which Climeworks hopes will remove up to a million tonnes of CO2 annually, using new technology which it claims will be cheaper and more energy efficient.
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