Removing CO2 From the Air Through a Shipping Container

No matter what politicians say about the world we live in, there is an undisputable crisis we face in the world today – climate change is happening and that is coming in a large part from manmade CO2 emissions. Unless we act fast, and the Donald Trumps of this world stop putting profit before their children’s futures, we are in deep trouble. Thankfully, private enterprise is moving into the vacuum where politicians fail to lead. One such company is Climeworks, a Swiss company that uses a shipping container based system to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and reuses that CO2 for a range of different industrial and farming processes.

The CO2 filtration system

As can be seen in the diagram above, the process involves drawing air through a chemical filter to remove all the CO2 and moisture, pumping out CO2 free air. The filter is then heated to 100 degrees C and concentrated CO2 is captured in a gas bottle.

The units are fitted inside shipping containers and can be shifted around at will or additional units bought and added into the system. They can also be delivered across long distances from the Swiss factory to the customer, wherever they may be in the world.

Industrial and farming uses for the captured CO2

While some CO2 removal technologies make the gas unavailable for use and can be seen as a way to ‘offset’ one’s carbon emissions, the Climeworks system actually makes the CO2 available for industrial processes. A business will not just buy this to make themselves look good in their Corporate Social Responsibility report! Companies adding compressed gas to fizzy drinks can use it, while greenhouse farming operations can improve their yields, and finally the captured CO2 can be used to create fossil fuels.

Imagine if Coca Cola were to only use captured CO2 to put the fizz in the billions of bottles of its drinks it produces annually? That would start to significantly reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Greenhouse farms can improve their yields by 20% with increased CO2 levels in their farming operations. Plants’ photosynthesis improves with greater CO2 levels.

Through a chemical reaction between CO2 and water, it is possible to create hydrocarbons. That would mean we don’t need to pump and dig the stuff out of the ground in order to fuel our fossil fuel addicted economies.

As you can see, you don’t need to be a tree hugging hippy to use this system – it can make good financial sense to have a CO2 filtration system and thereby attract those for whom the bottom line is more important than their children being thrown headlong into a global climate crisis.

You’ll need a lot of containers…

According to Climeworks however, you’ll need some 750,000 shipping container CO2 filter systems to reduce annual global carbon emissions by 1%. While on the surface that looks like a terrifying number, this isn’t much more than travel through the container port of Shanghai in two weeks.

Green solutions don’t always involve a company having a ‘conscience’. The green economy is starting to beat the fossil fuel economy at its own game is in cold hearted economics. Where it makes financial sense to remove CO2 from the atmosphere then a business solely focused on making money will go for it. Climeworks shipping container CO2 capture system seems to be ticking that very box.