What's your cost of capture per ton?
What's your energy cost of capture per ton ?*
Right now, it's >5MWh/ton using lab scale equipment. At 1 million ton per year scale, we expect closer to 1-2MWh/ton.
Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
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Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
#12Whats the energy cost per ton of CO2 removed?
Right now, it's >5MWh/ton using lab scale equipment. At 1 million ton per year scale, we expect closer to 1-2MWh/ton.
Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
#13What's your cost of capture per ton?
Today at lab scale it is quite high at >$1000 ton. At the 1 million ton per year scale, we expect our process to come in at <$100/ton.
So as long as CO2 certificates are more expensive than your solution, it makes sense to opt for your solution? Do you see any other scenario's where companies will want to use your solution? Is this the cost including storage?
Does this use amines as well or is it a different chemical reaction?
Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
#14> After energy is applied, CO2 is desorbed from the substrate for downstream treatment and compression.
Is this the most energy intensive part of the process? What kind of energy do you apply? (heat?)
Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
#15Probably stupid idea, but why don’t you put your system at the end of a factory co2 output There you ll have more than 400ppm ?
That's what most carbon capture tech seeks to do, this would be direct carbon capture from the air. You are completely correct in assuming this is highly inefficient. As long as we are still blasting new CO2 into the atmosphere, it will always be easier to capture it at the source.
Direct air capture only becomes significant when we get access to enough clean energy to power the absurdly inefficient technology. Thermodynamically, even if you are capturing at max efficiency, it still sucks (something like 250kwh+ minimum to extract 1ton of CO2, not even close to reality). We need either abundant renewables or fusion/fission energy to make it viable.
Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
#16Congrats on the launch and good luck!
Whenever you're past the secrecy stage, I'd love to see a blog post or video to learn more about your approach.
Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
#17Have you looked into technology to turn CO2 into a solid? Like here: https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/turning-co2-into-so...
Also could the process be adapted to use sources of waste heat like from nuclear power, solar or geothermal?
Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
#18Probably stupid idea, but why don’t you put your system at the end of a factory co2 output There you ll have more than 400ppm ?
Great question. We'd love to capture point-source CO2 from factory flue gas where it is orders of magnitude more concentrated (often >10%) than in air (~400ppm). And fundamentally, there is no reason our process cannot be applied for this type of CO2 capture. For now, we are choosing to focus on air for 2 reasons:
1) Market. Early buyers of CO2 credits are primarily looking to get very clean accounting of who gets credit for the CO2 removed, and will pay a premium for anyone who can do it. If a buyer (say, a software company) pays for a polluting chemical factory or power plant to capture some of its emissions, it requires complex multi-party contracts & the incentives between the parties are often conflicting. That being said, point-source CO2 removal is absolutely needed & a huge opportunity/problem and more work is needed from a technology/policy side.
2) The "extreme user" case. If we give 100% focus to solving the more challenging problem of removing CO2 from air, we may gain learnings & knowledge that will translate to an improved point-source capture process, whether from an energy/efficiency/cost perspective.
Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
#19While I applaud your needed technologies, I was curious if you had any plans to foster relationships/partnerships with any "clean" (read cleaner) energy solutions to power your energy needs for carbon capture and sequestration?
Re: Launch HN: AirMyne (YC W22) – Capturing CO2 from air at industrial scale
#20What's your cost of capture per ton?
Today at lab scale it is quite high at >$1000 ton. At the 1 million ton per year scale, we expect our process to come in at <$100/ton.
If you'll achieve that then this has to be done. France has a CO2 emissions of about 5ton per capita per year (which is pretty low for an industrial nation). But if we get all industrial countries into that ballpark or even lower, then we could just invest another $500 per person each year and are at net zero.