In this episode of The CDR Policy Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart dig into the cost assumptions behind the European Commission's EU Emissions Trading System review proposal, a month after the impact assessment first set out what BioCCS, DACCS, and biochar carbon removal are actually expected to cost between now and 2040. Sebastian has spent the past weeks tracing where those numbers come from, and brings in Hansjorg Lerchenmuller, Chairman of Biochar Europe, and Eadbhard Pernot, Executive Director of Carbon Management Europe, to stress test the modelling against real project economics.
The picture that emerges is one of a forecast built on remarkably thin foundations. All the Commission's numbers trace back to just four sources, and because the medium scenario is simply an average of a low and a high estimate, a single shaky assumption can drag the whole range off course. For BioCCS, that means a low cost calibrated against an unverifiable 2022 conference remark and a transport and storage figure of just 38 euros a ton that barely holds up against real infrastructure costs. DACCS fares little better, with the entire range resting on a single McKinsey report whose underlying assumptions were never published.
Biochar gets the most detailed correction. Hansjorg lays out where the European industry actually stands, more than 235 plants and a real scalable price closer to 175 to 200 euros a ton, well above what the Commission's own modelling implies.
The conversation closes on a shared plea: better data, more transparency about assumptions, and more developers willing to submit real transaction numbers before the next round of forecasts gets built.
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