Take on a podcast episode from The CDR Policy Scoop, originally published Sun, 23 Au. Listen: https://shows.acast.com/the-cdr-policy-scoop/episodes/what-does-cdr-actually-cost-in-europe-with-hansjorg-lerchenm

TL;DR

  • Commission’s ETS review cost forecasts for durable CDR trace to just four sources (McKinsey 2023, Ramboll Ecologic 2025, NEGEM 2023, CDR.fyi 2023) — thinner foundation than the policy weight implies.
  • Bio-CCS low-cost anchor of €172/t leans on €165/t of assumed energy revenue and calibration against an unverifiable 2022 Drax conference remark. Overstated confidence.
  • direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) range comes entirely from a black-box McKinsey report; no inspectable assumptions on energy, T&S, or learning rate. Useful flag.
  • Biochar low bound (€37–66/t) reflects Global South artisanal systems; Hansjörg says European scalable price is €175–200/t. First-time-cited industry number worth having.
  • Practical asks: modelers should use current CDR.fyi data, be transparent about assumptions, and suppliers should submit transaction data. Signal-dense.

Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart host Eadbhard Pernot (Carbon Management Europe) and Hansjörg Lerchenmüller (Biochar Europe) to stress-test the cost assumptions behind the European Commission’s July 2026 ETS review impact assessment. The episode walks through bio-CCS, DACCS, and biochar carbon removal cost curves line by line — where the numbers actually come from, and where they fall apart.

The load-bearing finding: the Commission’s medium scenarios are arithmetic averages of a low and a high, so a single weak anchor distorts the whole range. Bio-CCS is the worst offender because it dominates the proposed 250 Mt purchase envelope. The €172/t low-cost starting point from the NEGEM study is really €337/t minus €165/t of assumed energy revenue — an enormous offset that assumes both high power prices and that operators would rather sell CDR than electricity. Meanwhile transport and storage is pegged at €38/t, plausible for a Hungarian onshore aquifer next to a bioethanol plant (Pernot cites Danube Carbon Storage at sub-€50/t all-in), but not for North Sea offshore. The 2050 endpoint of €153/t comes from a nine-expert consultation. Sebastian’s cross-check against Carbonfuture and CDR.fyi shows current European bio-CCS transactions at €220–340/t, with roughly €100–200/t of subsidy baked in.

DACCS is more opaque — every number traces to the McKinsey 2023 report with no published assumptions, calibrated on Climeworks, 1PointFive, and Carbon Direct interviews. The forecast assumes falling energy costs for DACCS while bio-CCS assumes rising energy revenue in the same model. On biochar, Hansjörg’s number is the one worth writing down: European scalable pricing sits at €175–200/t for the CDR component, not the €37–66/t low bound the Commission pulled from global artisanal systems. He also notes 235 biochar plants operating in Europe by end of 2026 with roughly half a dozen equipment manufacturers at technology readiness level (TRL) 9.

For adjacent context, this pairs well with Sebastian Manhart’s written deep-dive on the ETS numbers (referenced throughout but not linked in the transcript), and with ongoing work by Carbon Management Europe and Biochar Europe. The critique of relying on old CDR.fyi snapshots when live portal data exists is a fair procedural hit on the Commission’s methodology. Martin Freimüller’s quoted line — that anyone forecasting DAC costs who hasn’t delivered credits, himself included, is working from “wildly simplistic techno-economic models disconnected from the messy reality” — is the honest frame the sector needs.

Useful for anyone modeling CDR compliance demand, buyers pricing 2030s offtake, or polic