Meet the Singaporean working at the world’s largest carbon capture plant in Iceland (2024)

REYKJAVIK – On the remote volcanic plains of Iceland, Singaporean Terence Tham, a 39-year-old chemical engineer, is at the forefront of the fight against climate change.

As senior plant manager at Mammoth, the world’s largest direct air capture (DAC) plant, Mr Tham keeps things shipshape at the 50,000 sq m facility – equivalent to the size of about seven football fields.

The plant, one of only about 20 such facilities in the world in operation, can remove about 36,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year. This is equivalent to taking around 8,000 cars off the road for a year.

Mammoth removes CO2 from the atmosphere using giant fans in container collectors, which pull air through filters to capture the planet-warming gas.

Companies such as tech giant Microsoft and financial services firm Stripe pay for this carbon removal service to meet their climate change commitments.

While this amount of emissions is just a fraction of annual global emissions – which amounted to over 37.4 billion tonnes in 2023 – scientists consider such novel technology key in humanity’s bid to limit global temperature rise.

Globally, scientists estimate that up to 10 billion tonnes of CO2 will need to be removed annually from the atmosphere by 2050, according to global research non-profit organisation World Resources Institute.

Currently, only 12 of 72 collector containers – which will allow the plant to take in the 36,000 tonnes of CO2 – have been deployed at Mammoth. Mr Tham coordinates with other stakeholders to ramp up production and deploy the remaining containers.

His team carries out maintenance and monitors the plant 24/7, ensuring it is run safely and efficiently. Mr Tham also works with Carbfix, an Icelandic company that turns captured CO2 into stone and stores it underground.

To get Icelanders to understand why noise and obstruction of natural landscapes from his project are necessary, Mr Tham also leads tours of the plant to explain how it mitigates climate change.

Mr Tham’s career has taken him all over the world.

After completing his national service in 2005, he pursued an undergraduate education in natural sciences in France and earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering at Ensta Paris.

He then worked at Solvay, a global chemical company, first as a production engineer in France, before he was relocated to Italy and ultimately to the US, where he advanced to the role of plant manager.

After obtaining a Master of Business Administration at Wharton School, the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, Mr Tham felt it was time to pivot his career towards initiatives that could impact the environment.

His foray into novel climate tech began in January 2024 when heuprooted his family – wife Gwendolyn Cham, 44, and three daughters, aged 11, 10 and four – from the US to join Climeworks, the Swiss start-up behind Mammoth.

Ms Cham is an executive director of a research institute in the US and works remotely from Iceland. She is also working on her master’s degree in public health at the University of Iceland.

Working in a plant surrounded by mountains, stunning scenery and abundant fresh air was a new experience for Mr Tham. However, the weather can be unpredictable, shifting through “four seasons in a day”, he said.

During winter, he and his team have to ensure that snow does not get stuck in the giant fans, he said.

He noted that Icelanders have a strong “can-do” spirit and are comfortable with uncertainty. They live by the phrase “petta reddast”, which means “it will work out”, a mindset that resonates with him, he said.

“It’s very exciting to be part of this because it’s new technology, it’s the first of its kind,” said the engineer. “I decided to go beyond my personal capacity, and I did a lot of looking around on where I could apply my professional skills to fight climate change and this opportunity came along.”

As plant manager, Mr Tham and his team of 10also work closely with Climeworks’ headquarters in Zurich to integrate new technological advancements into the facility.

Climeworks’ senior press officer, Ms Judith Hebekeuser, said a more efficient and cost-saving version of its DAC technology, which has been termed “Generation Three technology”, has been successfully tested in Switzerland.

Testing results confirmed that the new technology can double CO2 capture capacity, halveenergy consumption, increase material lifetime, and cut costs by 50 per cent.The technology will first be deployed in a commercial plant at Climeworks’ next DAC project in south-west Louisiana in the US, she said.

Construction of the US facility is slated to begin in 2026, and it is projected to remove one million tonnes of excess CO2 every year by 2030, according to Climeworks.

Mr Tham and his team are now looking into how this new technology, such as highly porous filters that can absorb CO2 more efficiently, can be implemented into Mammoth.

His environmental commitment does not stop at work.

As a father, he tries to be a role model and foster sustainable habits, he said. “In the US, instead of putting food waste in the bin, we would dig a hole behind the house and bury it in the ground for composting.”

During summer, they do not turn on the air-conditioner unless it becomes unbearable, he said. They often opt to cool down in a swimming pool instead.

And the girls appear to be enthusiastic about conservation. They have started thinking about how to give things a second life before throwing them away, said Mr Tham.

For example, they make toys out of unwanted boxes and use yogurt containers to plant tomatoes and other plants. “Simple gestures like that and making conscious decisions can reduce the impact we have on the environment,” he said.

Mr Tham believes Mammoth is a crucial step towards fighting climate change.

“I’m happy that we’re doing something. We’re trying at Mammoth and it’s not easy. It’s only the first few steps; there’s still a long way to go to scale this technology, to get a lot more volume and to actually solve the problem,” he said.

• Leow Wen Xuan is a final-year communication studies student at Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information in Singapore. Her report on the Mammoth direct air capture plant is part of the school’s Going Overseas For Advanced Reporting, or Go-Far, module.