Carbon Dioxide Price Impacts

Visualize the impacts of carbon dioxide (CO₂) price on the economics of various reductive CO₂ utilization technologies today and in the future.

For many industries, feedstock costs sharply influence the minimum selling price (MSP) of their products. The same is true of chemical intermediates made with captured CO₂. The purity and concentration of a CO₂ stream—whether pulled from the air or siphoned from a power plant—shape how cost-effective CO₂utilization technologies are at producing a product.

The exact impacts of CO₂ price on product MSP depends on a set of factors:

The source and concentration of a CO₂ stream
The efficiency of a CO₂conversion pathway
The scale (production capacity) of a facility and capital expenses
Scenario assumptions (e.g., current, future, and theoretical scenarios in this study)
The type of product or material being produced
Low-carbon policies and incentives.

Note that the final value of a credit or incentive varies based on the life cycle analysis of a process and feedstock. This study uses -$35/tonne as a bookend for the analysis based on the 45Q tax credit from the U.S. Federal CO₂ Storage Incentive program to illustrate the impact of negative CO₂ pricing. However, it does not necessarily indicate the actual price that would be paid for the CO₂ through off-take agreements.

Calculated and Relative Impacts

Spanning the utilization technologies explored in this study, the calculated impact of CO₂ price on the MSP of the final product ranged from -31% to +88% in the current case and -60% to +251% in the future case across the studied capture costs/point sources.

The relative impact of CO₂ capture cost is less significant in the current cases as other factors dominate product MSP, such as electricity costs and higher capital costs of immature CO₂ conversion pathways. However, as the reductive CO₂ utilization technologies improve in the future case and overall efficiencies rise, CO₂ price becomes a more prominent cost driver.

State of Technology and Future Impact

Click on State of Technology or Future to choose the data type. To view the data for a CO₂ source, hover or click on its respective bar in the chart.

State of Technology Future

Thermochemical Conversion
Biological Conversion
Microbial Electrosynthesis
High-Temperature Electrolysis
Low-Temperature Electrolysis

Browse a table view of the numbers.

CO₂ Capture Costs
	Category	U.S. Federal Tax Credit 45Q (-$35/tonne)	Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle ($25/tonne)	Cement ($29/tonne)	Iron/Steel ($37/tonne)	Pulverized Coal Combustion ($53/tonne)	Natural Gas Combined Cycle Combustion ($63/tonne)	Direct Air Capture ($250/tonne)
Thermochemical Conversion	Methane	-0.211	-0.042	-0.031	-0.008	0.037	0.065	0.591
	Dimethyl ether	-0.200	-0.040	-0.029	-0.008	0.035	0.062	0.560
	Methanol	-0.154	-0.031	-0.023	-0.006	0.027	0.047	0.433
	Hydrocarbons (Direct Fischer-Tropsch)	-0.368	-0.073	-0.054	-0.104	0.064	0.113	1.032
	Carbon monoxide	-0.120	-0.024	-0.018	-0.005	0.021	0.037	0.335
Biological Conversion	Polyhydroxybutyrate	-0.156	-0.031	-0.023	-0.006	0.027	0.048	0.436
	Ethanol	-0.119	-0.024	-0.018	-0.005	0.021	0.037	0.334
	Methane	-0.212	-0.042	-0.031	-0.008	0.037	0.066	0.595
	Acetic acid	-0.112	-0.022	-0.016	-0.004	0.019	0.034	0.313
Microbial Electrosynthesis	Ethanol	-1.456	-0.291	-0.214	-0.058	0.252	0.447	4.077
	Formic acid	-0.364	-0.073	-0.053	-0.014	0.063	0.112	1.019
	Methane	-0.209	-0.042	-0.031	-0.008	0.036	0.064	0.586
	Acetic acid	-0.112	-0.022	-0.016	-0.005	0.019	0.034	0.313
High-Temperature Electrolysis	Methane	-0.355	-0.071	-0.052	-0.014	0.062	0.109	0.994
High-Temperature Electrolysis	Carbon monoxide	-0.120	-0.024	-0.018	-0.005	0.021	0.037	0.336
Low-Temperature Electrolysis	Oxalic acid	-0.083	-0.016	-0.012	-0.003	0.014	0.025	0.231
	Formic acid	-0.076	-0.015	-0.011	-0.003	0.013	0.023	0.213
	Carbon monoxide	-0.120	-0.024	-0.018	-0.005	0.021	0.037	0.335
	Methane	-0.423	-0.085	-0.062	-0.017	0.073	0.130	1.184
	Methanol	-0.137	-0.027	-0.020	-0.005	0.024	0.042	0.383
	Ethanol	-0.235	-0.047	-0.034	-0.009	0.041	0.072	0.657
	Ethylene	-0.404	-0.081	-0.059	-0.016	0.070	0.124	1.132

The CO₂ capture costs for different point sources used in this plot were obtained from Cost Analysis of Carbon Capture and Sequestration of Process Emissions from the U.S. Industrial Sector, Environmental Science and Technology (2020).

Mid-line for the State of Technology case represents a CO₂ cost of $40/tonne; mid-line for the Future case represents a CO₂ cost of $20/tonne.