Carbon Dioxide Removal: Counting the Cost

Back when I was a mere twinkle in the petrochemicals’ price reporting agency (PRA) industry’s eye, the practical joke and conundrum: “What's heavier? A ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?” was doing the rounds… To some extent, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are the feathers of the 21st century. The 2020s, of all the new millennium decades so far, are serving up sublime times indeed.

Within months of the decade's start, Brent crude oil traded at a negative price of minus US$40/bbl for the first time in recorded history. Chlorine, a chemical intermediate with a price point peak six times above today's oil price during the past five years, went that way, too. Not only is the notion of value evolving before our very eyes, but free—and/or cheap—oil slows commercial innovation in sustainable technology. 

Value now pivots on volatility and the peaks and troughs of global trade. This adage will increasingly be played out in emissions trading and carbon dioxide (CO2) pricing structures.

Analyzing Emissions: Volume and Mass

So, if the volumes, numbers, and values surrounding CO2 emissions narratives seem meaningless in terms of comparison, analysis, and price benchmarks to you, our expert guidance is just what you need. 

As we begin to explore CO2 emissions volume—and the abatement rates needed to mitigate their impact—even relatively educated audiences are confounded. A gigaton, for example, is an unimaginable volume or mass to many of us. Yet despite their inherent perplexity, gigaton metrics are routinely used in greenhouse gas narratives.

Download the report, Carbon Dioxide: Counting the Cost, now...

Crunching Numbers to Visualize Value

It’s quite simple to grasp the concept of one million. It is a relatively easy monetary value to accrue even for taxpayers on average US salaries. Well, it would take just over 17 years of working to accumulate a million dollars if you spent none of your earnings.

Becoming a billionaire however, will take the average US earner a little longer… How long? Try toiling for over 17,000 years, or 17 millennia and a few centuries…

Tera (one trillion) comes from the Greek word teras (or teratos), meaning "marvel, monster," and has been used since the mid-20^th century. 

One trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is the equivalent of 1000 billion or 1 million millions.

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Strategies

The US Department of Energy has established the Carbon Negative Shot as part of its Energy EarthShots initiative. Dubbed the frontiers of the clean energy transition, the development of the capability to remove CO2 by the gigaton is among the program goals. To clarify, a gigaton is the equivalent of one thousand million metric tons and it is written as the number 1 followed by nine zeros.

Other goals:

• bring the cost of CO2 removal and storage to under US$100 per net ton CO2 equivalent.
  
  
• provide durable storage with costs demonstrated for all aspects, including monitoring, reporting, and verification for 100 years

Sustainable Soil Agricultural Practice

Meanwhile, the strategy of Massachusetts-based company Indigo leverages soil carbon credits and the regenerative agriculture technique. Indigo has its targets set on removing a terraton of CO2 by sequestration into the soil. At around 1500 gigatons, the world’s soil contains three times more CO2 than in the atmosphere. It is in fact, the second largest active store of carbon after the oceans. For every 1% increase in the CO2 content in soil, there is an increase in water absorption of 20,000 gallons per acre.

Of all mooted CO2 removal tactics, soil sequestration appears to carry the greatest potential for profit. This Royal Society Greenhouse Gas Removal report estimates profit potential to be over three times the technique's cost.

Having launched the Terraton Initiative in 2019, Indigo says it has sequestered 350,000 tons of CO2 and saved 21 billion tons of water.

Regenerative agriculture not only sequesters CO2 but also improves soil water management, leading to increased food productivity. A fairly new angle to regenerative farming is the French concept of culture intermédiaire à vocation energétique (CIVE). Potentially biofuel-yielding feedstocks, CIVE crops—also known as cover crops—are planted and harvested between two main crops in rotation. Successful harvests could provide raw materials for biogas and biomaterial markets. Such contribution to renewable energy sources would reduce dependence on fossil fuel and petrochemical feedstocks and value chains.

Harnessing Waste Carbon for Plastics Feedstock

German Polymer manufacturer Covestro has produced CO2-based polyols for the soft furnishing industry for about a decade. Widely considered breakthrough innovation in alternative and more sustainable raw materials then, Cardyon is a flexible polyurethane foam feedstock comprising up to 20% CO2. Such techniques serve to lock that CO2 into a product and, therefore, out of Earth’s atmosphere.

US-based Newlight Technologies announced its intention to build one of the world’s largest carbon capture manufacturing hubs to produce a molecule called PHB in 2022.

PHB—which Newlight has designated AirCarbon— is deemed the most common polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) form. PHBs are polyesters yielded by microorganisms, including via bacterial fermentation of sugars. The firm already partners with FMCG brands Nike and Ben & Jerry’s, but PHA-based plastics are ripe for sustainable packaging markets. PHA potential is a subject we explore in our blog post, Plastic Packaging Material That is Both Sustainable and Biodegrades.

Another vanguard in the CO2-based feedstock arena is UK-headquartered Econic Technologies. Spun out of Imperial College London around a decade ago, Econic’s sustainable raw materials are used in industries including apparel, automotive, furniture, and CASE (coatings, adhesives, sealants, and elastomers) applications. In 2024, collaborations with Japan’s Sanyo Chemicals and Romanian chemical company Chimcomplex to co-develop new CO2-based polyols were initiated.

Another promising European innovation and enterprise in CO2-based plastics is explored in the special report.

Carbon Accounting: Transparency and Integrity

Make no mistake, CDR is the mid-2020s trend. Sales in these markets are estimated to have risen hundreds of percentage points across just a few months this year, with 2025 set to break further records to keep global emissions inside internationally agreed limits.

“Investors are looking for ways to deliver returns from CDR solutions that deliver Net Zero objectives," says Matthew Stone, VP of Business Development ResourceWise Sustainability.

Stone, who established the ResourceWise acquisition PrimaMarkets exactly a decade ago, warns: “Emerging CDR pathways and technologies are sorely needed to accelerate the world’s net zero and sustainable development goals. However, their value chains require cohesive structures and verification standards.

“Without robust methodologies and transparency over the economic structures supporting investments, carbon removal markets risk repeating the integrity issues which have cropped up in earlier environmental markets.

"We are uniquely positioned to provide insight and analysis on how to assess the investment costs and returns from carbon emissions mitigation solutions, including CDR initiatives,” adds Stone.

Download our special report, Carbon Dioxide: Counting the Cost, now...