The economic outlook for converting CO2 and electrons to molecules

Abstract

Shifting towards a circular carbon economy in the face of rising global population and diminishing natural reserves represents one of the greatest challenges facing mankind. CO₂ reduction reactions powered by renewable electricity offer a possible route to transform our incumbent linear consumption economic model by tapping into the over 10 gigatonnes of carbon emitted globally each year in the form of CO₂. However, many critical questions for CO₂ reduction remain unanswered across the varied pathway-product combinations such as (1) what is the near-term economic viability? (2) what opportunities exist for transformational R&D to reduce cost? (3) what is the impact of CO₂ price? (4) how does renewable electricity intermittency affect the production costs? Herein we perform a comprehensive economic assessment of CO₂ reduction across five major electricity-driven technologies using a scale basis of a 200 million gallon per year bioethanol facility (ca. 600 kilotonnes CO₂ per year) as the CO₂ source. From this framework we address these key issues and report the outlook for the near-, mid-, and long-term production of 11 promising carbonaceous products while providing guidance to the research community on key cost drivers and R&D needs. Our analysis shows that with modest technical advancements and an accompanying reduction in electricity price to $0.03 kW h⁻¹ and CO₂ price to $20 per tonne, 8 out of 11 CO₂-derived products have the potential to reach production costs at parity with, or even lower than, current market prices.