The 'World's Largest Vacuum' Sits Atop A Dormant Volcano In Iceland

The 'World's Largest Vacuum' Sits Atop A Dormant Volcano In Iceland

The 'World's Largest Vacuum' Sits Atop A Dormant Volcano In Iceland The world’s largest vacuum sits atop a dormant volcano in Hellisheiði, Iceland. As a carbon dioxide capture and storage facility — dubbed “Mammoth” — the vacuum sucks in air and strips out the carbon, sequestering it underground and locking it permanently in stone.  According to Climeworks, Mammoth’s manufacturer, the facility has the capacity to pull 36,000 tons of carbon from the air annually. That’s the equivalent of taking 7,800 gas-powered cars off the road for a year.  Although it’s not the first facility of its kind, Mammoth is ten times bigger than its Climeworks predecessor, Orca, which was installed in 2021.  It’s also more efficient in reducing carbon dioxide losses at each stage of purification.  Illustrated by Carra Sykes “What we did at Mammoth relative to Orca is that we cut down the number of steps and, specifically, some really high energy and some really high complexity steps, which now helps u…