A licence to suck - Part 2

Audio version of the article right below the paywall

In Part 1 of this story, I tried to provide a sort of general overview of carbon capture, including direct air capture, highlighting some of the biggest challenges for the technology.

In this part, it’s going to get interesting. In this part, we’ll look at actual costs, including energy costs. To spare you the suspense because I’m not that kind of a writer, let me say right at the start that these costs are pretty substantial. Including the energy costs.

Two years ago, the world’s largest direct air capture facility began operating in Iceland. Dubbed Orca, the project was built by Swiss-based DAC startup Climeworks. It cost between $10 and $15 million to build, according to Climeworks co-founder Jan Wurzbacher and yes, like you, I am confused why the cost of something already completed is being given in a range.

Per Wurzbacher himself, speaking to Bloomberg, “The cost per ton of Orca is perhaps less important than what we will learn, to get quicker to the large scale and ultimately lower prices.”

Of course it is. Part of the reason Wurzbacher considers it less important than “what we will learn” is that, not to put too fine a point on it, that cost is quite high. And that is the reason another Climeworks executive was equally shy about talking costs with S&P Global.

Barbara Truyers, strategic partnerships manager, opened up enough to tell S&P that the cost of building a DAC plant was high but mentioned no figure for the cost of direct air capturing a tonne of CO2. All she said was that this cost was going to come down to $250 to $300 per tonne by the end of the decade.

That’s a bright prospect but the inquisitive among us still wonder what level this cost will be falling from. Well, I’m happy to tell you we’ve got that number, or rather the range, courtesy of Boston Consulting Group. Ready? Sucking up a tonne of CO2 directly from the air costs between $600 and $1,000.