Sustaera, a North Carolina-based DAC startup, just dropped a bold claim: their third-generation electro-thermal approach captures CO₂ from air at 90%+ energy efficiency, with capital costs 3-5x lower than existing thermal DAC technologies.

If verified at scale, that’s not incremental. It’s the kind of step change that could make DAC competitive with biochar.

What’s Different?

Incumbent DAC systems — including Climeworks’ solid sorbent approach and Carbon Engineering’s liquid solvent method — typically max out around 40% thermal efficiency. Sustaera says its proprietary nano-structured sorbent combined with integrated electric heating smashes through that ceiling.

The key distinction: this is “3rd-generation” DAC. Rather than relying on large baseload thermal energy (which requires either geothermal access or massive heat infrastructure), Sustaera’s system runs on electricity. That opens the door to coupling with cheap renewables anywhere, not just locations with convenient geology.

The Sub-$100/ton Question

Sustaera claims these efficiencies put them on a credible path to sub-$100/ton carbon removal. That’s the threshold where DAC stops being a premium climate product and starts competing in mainstream carbon markets.

To be clear: “on a path to” is not “currently delivering at.” And plenty of DAC companies have made cost projections that didn’t survive contact with reality. But the 90%+ efficiency claim is specific and testable — either the physics work at scale or they don’t.

Context Matters

The DAC sector needs good news right now. The US just cancelled $1.2B in DAC hub funding. First-generation plants have delivered only a fraction of the credits they sold. The narrative around DAC has shifted from “revolutionary” to “expensive and unreliable.”

Sustaera has backing from Stripe and Shopify — carbon removal buyers who’ve built reputations on picking technically credible projects. The company is now offering technology licensing to developers, a model that could accelerate deployment without Sustaera having to build and operate every plant itself.

If the efficiency numbers hold up at scale, this could rewrite DAC economics. Big if. But worth watching closely.

Source: GlobeNewsWire / Sustaera

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