The cheapest sources of CO2 are from ammonia production and fermentation tanks. But if you mean removing CO2 from the air, biomass is definitely the cheapest option.
The simplest thing you can do is bury byproducts like sugarcane bagasse, and do something (there are a few options) to prevent decomposition.
The most economically attractive option on a large scale, in my opinion, is conversion to levulinic acid + furfural for chemical products and fuel, and burying the hydrochar. But...
Most countries simply don’t have enough extra land to grow enough grass to replace / compensate for their CO2 emissions.
That requires a better process for conversion than is currently in use and some new uses for those products. Which I have some thoughts on, but that’s a big project.
As for good ways to reduce CO2 emissions in the first place, I think those include:
more working from home where practical
continue improving insulation where it’s bad
shut down old coal plants and build more HVDC lines
Thanks for the thorough feedback, bhauth. You’re right about biomass being the cheapest current option for carbon removal.
After researching current biochar systems, I can see why you consider this the more viable approach:
Current biochar carbon removal costs range from $130-180/t-CO₂ according to recent studies, with a carbon yield of ~2.7 t-CO₂ equivalent per ton of biochar. Charm Industrial’s bio-oil injection method sells at $600/t-CO₂ today but targets $230 by 2030 with scaled production. The land constraint you mentioned is the key challenge though, even optimistic assessments from the IEA suggest biomass approaches top out at 3-4 Gt/yr globally due to available sustainable feedstock. This is substantial but falls short of the 10+ Gt/yr that climate models suggest we’ll eventually need.
That’s precisely why we’re exploring electro-swing approaches despite their current higher costs. We believe there’s room for multiple carbon removal methods in the solution space, especially when considering land use constraints.
You raised valid concerns about MOF manufacturing costs and durability under real-world conditions. These are exactly the technical hurdles we need to overcome. Our next step is to run a head-to-head TEA comparing slow-pyrolysis bagasse biochar vs electro-swing MOF DAC, using identical discount rates, power costs, and storage assumptions.
Would you mind sharing which specific aspects of the MOF approach you see as most problematic from a manufacturing or scalability perspective? Your industrial chemistry perspective could help us identify blind spots in our thinking.
And would you mind if we could talk more about this in DMs?
What? No, I was just showing those numbers to see if electro-swing might have a chance. I didn’t use AI at all. I’m just curious about biomass stuff, that’s why I was looking more into it. Nothing I wrote was AI-generated. I’m actually super interested in this topic. I’m really Sorry, Sir, if my writing sounds weird or whatever, but I didn’t use AI.
OK, in that case we can talk by DMs as well. Some LLMs tend to make formal and polite writing with somewhat awkward wording and can do a cursory web search to add more citations than you should expect someone to read, but maybe you’re a student in a country that also speaks something besides english.
Current biochar carbon removal costs range from $130-180/t-CO₂ according to recent studies
You shouldn’t just be looking at biochar; there are other approaches, like drying, adding CaCl2, etc. I’ve seen some lower estimates for biomass burial, eg $50/ton CO2 here. Burial where gas from decomposition won’t escape is another option, eg this paper.
My general advice to you would be to trust cost estimates in papers less. Professors will effectively lie to make their research seem more useful, and there are bad techno-economic analysis papers too. Judging the quality of such papers and learning what parts are trustworthy is just a skill you have to practice.
The cheapest sources of CO2 are from ammonia production and fermentation tanks. But if you mean removing CO2 from the air, biomass is definitely the cheapest option.
The simplest thing you can do is bury byproducts like sugarcane bagasse, and do something (there are a few options) to prevent decomposition.
The most economically attractive option on a large scale, in my opinion, is conversion to levulinic acid + furfural for chemical products and fuel, and burying the hydrochar. But...
Most countries simply don’t have enough extra land to grow enough grass to replace / compensate for their CO2 emissions.
That requires a better process for conversion than is currently in use and some new uses for those products. Which I have some thoughts on, but that’s a big project.
As for good ways to reduce CO2 emissions in the first place, I think those include:
more working from home where practical
continue improving insulation where it’s bad
shut down old coal plants and build more HVDC lines
Thanks for the thorough feedback, bhauth. You’re right about biomass being the cheapest current option for carbon removal.
After researching current biochar systems, I can see why you consider this the more viable approach:
Current biochar carbon removal costs range from $130-180/t-CO₂ according to recent studies, with a carbon yield of ~2.7 t-CO₂ equivalent per ton of biochar. Charm Industrial’s bio-oil injection method sells at $600/t-CO₂ today but targets $230 by 2030 with scaled production.
The land constraint you mentioned is the key challenge though, even optimistic assessments from the IEA suggest biomass approaches top out at 3-4 Gt/yr globally due to available sustainable feedstock. This is substantial but falls short of the 10+ Gt/yr that climate models suggest we’ll eventually need.
That’s precisely why we’re exploring electro-swing approaches despite their current higher costs. We believe there’s room for multiple carbon removal methods in the solution space, especially when considering land use constraints.
You raised valid concerns about MOF manufacturing costs and durability under real-world conditions. These are exactly the technical hurdles we need to overcome. Our next step is to run a head-to-head TEA comparing slow-pyrolysis bagasse biochar vs electro-swing MOF DAC, using identical discount rates, power costs, and storage assumptions.
Would you mind sharing which specific aspects of the MOF approach you see as most problematic from a manufacturing or scalability perspective? Your industrial chemistry perspective could help us identify blind spots in our thinking.
And would you mind if we could talk more about this in DMs?
First, I’d just like to check: was that response written by AI?
What? No, I was just showing those numbers to see if electro-swing might have a chance. I didn’t use AI at all. I’m just curious about biomass stuff, that’s why I was looking more into it. Nothing I wrote was AI-generated. I’m actually super interested in this topic. I’m really Sorry, Sir, if my writing sounds weird or whatever, but I didn’t use AI.
OK, in that case we can talk by DMs as well. Some LLMs tend to make formal and polite writing with somewhat awkward wording and can do a cursory web search to add more citations than you should expect someone to read, but maybe you’re a student in a country that also speaks something besides english.
You shouldn’t just be looking at biochar; there are other approaches, like drying, adding CaCl2, etc. I’ve seen some lower estimates for biomass burial, eg $50/ton CO2 here. Burial where gas from decomposition won’t escape is another option, eg this paper.
My general advice to you would be to trust cost estimates in papers less. Professors will effectively lie to make their research seem more useful, and there are bad techno-economic analysis papers too. Judging the quality of such papers and learning what parts are trustworthy is just a skill you have to practice.