![]() ![]() We believe that reducing DAC costs to $150 per ton of CO 2 or below is achievable, but getting there is going to be a stretch. Solving this challenge will require a paradigm shift. It would also encourage additional, non-DAC actions to remove emissions, most of which can be carried out below that price point, though not necessarily at sufficient global volumes. Getting to $150 per ton for carbon removal with DAC technology would establish a clear cap on the marginal cost for tackling emissions. ![]() If we are serious about a net zero world, then large-scale DAC at $150 per ton or lower should be a major part of the equation. Tackling these final emissions will require removing many obstacles, from permitting to just transitions for local communities to a host of “not in my backyard” issues. While reducing the first 60% to 80% of emissions is very affordable for most organizations (assuming sufficient access to renewables and other existing technologies), reducing the last 20% to 40% is very expensive-often well above $150 per ton. Therefore, from a global perspective, DAC removals are a costly but by no means unaffordable solution.īCG has modeled the greenhouse gas abatement cost curves for many industries and companies. This is comparable to current estimates of the global spend and cost of wastewater purification each year: a combined 0.5% to 1% of current global GDP. Adding another 10 GT of CO 2 removal from less permanent but also less expensive solutions, such as ocean alkalinity enhancement, enhanced rock weathering, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and nature-based solutions-such as reforestation and regenerative agriculture-would increase the funding needed to roughly 1% of global GDP. (See “Can the World Afford DAC?”) However, to unlock the insights and technologies that will drive costs down, far greater capacity than is currently planned will be needed in the short term, underpinned by expectations that there will be a market for the carbon credits generated.Īssuming we can reduce costs to $150 per ton of CO 2, how expensive would it be to deploy DAC at scale? At these levels, 10 gigatons (GT) of DAC capacity each year would cost $1.5 trillion, or less than 1% of a global GDP of nearly $200 trillion in 2050. This reduction in cost would dramatically accelerate demand, encouraging private developers to build more capacity and making the technology affordable for the world. This cost is in line with other waste products solid waste disposal costs in high-income countries, by comparison, range from around $170 to $205 per ton of solid waste. We estimate that in order for the technology to be widely adopted, the cost of DAC (the end-to-end cost of CO 2 removal including final storage) will need to fall from $600 to $1,000 per ton of CO 2 today to below $200 per ton and ideally closer to $100 per ton by 2050, and preferably earlier. In spite of this, DAC is in danger of failing to fulfill its potential because of its current high cost and comparatively low support from governments and other players with moving down the cost curve.
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