❌ Mythbuster: Biochar Carbon Removal costs <€50/t ❌

🤦 Time and time again, I look at a new CDR study and find myself speechless looking at cost estimates and projections for biochar carbon removal (hashtag#BCR) (CO2 removed, not the physical biochar).

⏬ Here are a few often cited highlights (for the lower bounds):

◾ IPCC at €12/t (2022)

◾ RMI at €9/t (2022)

◾ McKinsey at €50/t in 2035 and €37/t in 2050 (2023).

◾ Concito at €45/t (2024)

🧐 All of the reports above DO NOT produce primary data. They reference academic literature and third-party data.

Compare this to the lower bounds of actual prices for BCR:

🟩 CDR.fyi at €113/t (2024)

🟦 Puro at €123/t (2025)

🟪 Biochar Europe at €150/t (2025 - Europe only)

So this time, I dug a level deeper to understand what is actually going on. Here are some of the top misleading assumptions I discovered repeatedly:

📊 Use outlier, often outdated, public sales data

⚡ Generous sales of byproducts such as heat, electricity, bio-oils, and biochar

📉 Steep learning curves with associated large cost reductions

📜 Use of old studies which had limited and often unreliable data to draw from

🪵 Zero or negative cost feedstocks

🪙 Revenue from other non-CDR credits such as avoided emissions

🚜 Monetisation of agronomic benefits

⚠️ I am not saying none of the above can happen. But they all go from unlikely to impossible/not applicable. What happens is that they are not just used individually, but stacked on top of each other, which can quickly lead to massive discounts on the price of the carbon removal itself.

🔁 All of this becomes a self-reinforcing cycle of misinformation. The next studies will cite the previous ones mentioned above, and so we go on.

Now, anyone working in biochar is going to tell you that prices are not going to fall sharply. In fact, they might even go up. Why?

1️⃣ The technology is already at TRL 8-9 for modern pyrolysis (Biochar Europe 2025)

2️⃣ Projects are fairly modular and don’t scale individually as much as other CDR tech (which can be a strength -> decentralised).

3️⃣ The cost of biomass is likely to go up with increased biomass competition (especially in Europe).

Where do we go from here?

🏛️ We need to break out of the cycle described above. It is starting to influence policy decisions (e.g. I heard “BCR is too cheap for the ETS, it will lead to mitigation deterrence at €50/t…”). This issue is particularly true for industrial BCR in Europe, which has higher costs than artisanal BCR in the Global South.

🧑‍🎓 And we need academics and consultants to use industry and market data in their publications instead of purely theoretical models which are often disconnected from reality.

❓Over to you: is my assessment fair or misplaced? What’s your take?

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