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S2E12

Mining the Atmosphere: The Future of Direct Air Capture of CO2 | Dr. Gerhard Schöny, DACworx

with Dr. Gerhard Schöny· DACworx· 63m

TL;DR

Direct air capture (DAC) can reduce energy consumption by up to 50–60% compared to first-generation systems by physically separating the adsorption and regeneration chambers. DACworx utilizes a temperature vacuum swing adsorption process powered by low-grade heat (around 90°C) compatible with district heating or industrial waste heat, while targeting an operational capture cost of €250 per tonne by 2030.

Synopsis
Dr. Gerhard Schöny, co-founder of DACworx, discusses the technical realities and economics of scaling direct air capture. Transitioning from academic fluidized bed research and industrial point-source capture with Shell to founding a hard-tech startup, Schöny outlines why DACworx separated adsorption from regeneration to eliminate the parasitic thermal cycling found in first-generation reactors. The discussion covers system integration with district heating networks, the critical role of CapEx reduction through modular pre-assembly, and regulatory frameworks including the EU Carbon Removals Certification Framework (CRCF) and ReFuelEU Aviation mandate.

Key metrics

by the numbers · 6
  • 3 to 4 years
    Projected operational lifetime of DACworx's solid sorbent material
  • 50 to 60%
    Reduction in energy consumption achieved compared to baseline DAC benchmarks
  • 80%
    Share of total system energy input required as heat for vacuum steam generation
  • 90°C
    Minimum waste heat supply temperature required to drive the regeneration process
  • 70%
    Share of total capture costs driven by CapEx rather than energy inputs in early projects
  • €250 per tonne
    Target commercial capture cost for DACworx projects by 2030

Topics

6 tags
direct air capturecarbon dioxide removaldistrict heatingsustainable aviation fuelsindustrial decarbonisationcarbon accounting
Stats
Duration
1h 02m
Words
12.9k
Questions
108
Speakers
3

Daniel Schaub · Gerhard Schöny · Rahul Mishra

Timeline

9 chapters

  1. Academic background and point-source capture

    Schöny reviews his PhD research at TU Wien, collaborating with Shell on solid-sorbent post-combustion capture.

  2. Industrial operations experience

    Insights gained from working at the Simmeringer Haide waste incineration facility and Dieffenbacher Energy.

  3. DACworx core process and sorbent technology

    An explanation of temperature vacuum swing adsorption using commercially available solid sorbents originally designed for water treatment.

  4. Origins and spin-off of DACworx

    How a partnership with Silicon Valley investor Peter Relan prompted rapid prototyping and commercialization out of TU Wien.

  5. Decoupling adsorption and desorption

    Achieving major energy savings by moving the sorbent between separate capture and regeneration vessels.

  6. Integration with district heating and waste heat

    How operating regeneration under vacuum allows low-temperature thermal inputs below 90°C.

  7. Utilization versus storage and SAF demand

    Comparing the spatial footprint of DAC against BECCS and identifying ReFuelEU aviation mandates as an early market driver.

  8. The CapEx bottleneck and modular scaling

    Why bringing down CapEx via standardization and prefabricated modules is more critical to levelized costs than further thermodynamic tweaks.

  9. European policy and carbon market structures

    Assessing the impact of the EU CRCF framework, compliance markets like the EU ETS, and voluntary carbon markets dominated by tech buyers.

Key insights

4 takeaways
  • 01

    Separating adsorption and regeneration eliminates thermal cycling losses

    Early DAC architectures alternate heating and cooling in a single vessel, acting sequentially like a fridge and an oven. By physically transporting solid sorbents between distinct adsorption and vacuum regeneration zones, DACworx avoids continuous parasitic heating and cooling of the reactor structure, cutting energy demand by 50–60%.

  • 02

    Vacuum regeneration unlocks low-temperature industrial and district waste heat

    Because desorption takes place under vacuum, steam generation temperatures can drop as low as 70–80°C. This allows the system to run on low-grade thermal sources below 90°C, making DAC compatible with municipal district heating grids and unutilized industrial waste heat streams.

  • 03

    CapEx, not operational energy, dominates levelized DAC costs

    While public debate focuses heavily on energy intensity, project modeling shows capital expenditure accounts for roughly 70% of levelized capture costs. Addressing unit economics requires prefabricated modularization, standardized containerized standards, and lower-cost manufacturing in regions like Eastern Europe rather than custom on-site construction.

  • 04

    DAC is mathematically essential to compensate for residual point-source emissions

    Flue-gas capture systems realistically reach capture efficiencies around 90%, leaving substantial residual emissions in hard-to-abate industrial processes. Atmospheric removal serves as a mandatory physical balancing mechanism for these residual 10% fractions as well as historical atmospheric carbon stock.

Pull quotes

5 quotes
  • So, what we did is we had the material at hand. It's not optimized for DAC. It's actually used for waste water treatment, typically.
    Gerhard Schöny
  • The first generation systems, they wanted to do this both of these steps in one compartment, in one single reactor. It's like, you can I mean, it's like having one room being operated as fridge and as an oven, alternating.
    Gerhard Schöny
  • One thing I I need to be clear on, and I want to be very clear on, is that DAC cannot be an excuse for emitting.
    Gerhard Schöny
  • We came up with roughly 70% of our CO2 costs that, fro- for our DAC system come from CapEx, right?
    Gerhard Schöny
  • And what carbon capture does, is really, it chokes a bit the amount of water that goes in. So, it limits the amount of water that still goes in, but it it's still, right, increases the level. So, you need something to to pull it out again.
    Gerhard Schöny
Transcript1049 cuesClick a timestamp to jump
  1. Daniel Schaub: Welcome to a new episode here in the Energy Bridge.
  2. Daniel Schaub: And, wow, we were talking before recording, ah, hard tech for ah, carbon capture and everything, and we are really looking forward for this ah, interview. We are going to
  3. Daniel Schaub: um dive deep into direct air
  4. Daniel Schaub: capture related with carbon capture. So, everything what is around with an expert, Gerhard.
  5. Daniel Schaub: Eh, thank you for, for coming today.
  6. Gerhard Schöny: Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure. Thanks.
  7. Rahul Mishra: Thank you, Gerhard.
  8. Rahul Mishra: Um, first of all, uh, we have a lot of, ah,
  9. Rahul Mishra: introductory thing that we wrote about you,
  10. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  11. Rahul Mishra: but it's always, ah, good to hear from the man himself. Please tell us about yourself and also your journey so far.
  12. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah. So, initially I, I've been studying mechanical engineering at TU Wien,
  13. Gerhard Schöny: ah focusing then in my master's on energy technologies, or renewable energy especially.
  14. Gerhard Schöny: And in one of my lectures, I got aware of carbon capture, and there has been an opportunity to, ah,
  15. Gerhard Schöny: to go for a master thesis abroad to Gothenburg, to Chalmers University.
  16. Gerhard Schöny: So, I went to the Chemical Energy Engineering Department then. Professor Pröll was ah, um
  17. Gerhard Schöny: heading this ah research group who was working on carbon capture back then.
  18. Gerhard Schöny: And then, yeah, this collaboration started. I, I got the chance to, to make my masters there,
  19. Gerhard Schöny: ah, in 2010 or so,
  20. Gerhard Schöny: in Chalmers. Uh, so this is where I started to work on carbon capture, actually. And it was That's in Gothenburg in Sweden. In Sweden. Yeah. The This subject really kind of, you know, ah,
  21. Daniel Schaub: Was in, in France, or?
  22. Daniel Schaub: What is?
  23. Daniel Schaub: In Sweden.
  24. Gerhard Schöny: was so interesting to me. So, I,
  25. Gerhard Schöny: ah, was pushing for also the opportunity to have, ah, a PhD ah thesis,
  26. Gerhard Schöny: ah, you know, continue my studies in these fields,
  27. Gerhard Schöny: ah, here in Vienna. And, uh, yeah,
  28. Gerhard Schöny: there was Luckily, uh, there was one project, uh,
  29. Gerhard Schöny: popping up back then, ah, with ah a big oil company, Shell,
  30. Gerhard Schöny: ah, who were
  31. Gerhard Schöny: ah asking the question whether we can make the benchmark carbon capture process more efficiently,
  32. Gerhard Schöny: amine scrubbing,
  33. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  34. Gerhard Schöny: which is a process that has been around since the 1930s. So, that's quite a challenge, right? So,
  35. Gerhard Schöny: uh it was very interesting. And in the main idea was to switch from this liquid,
  36. Gerhard Schöny: ah, solvents to solid solvents.
  37. Gerhard Schöny: And, uh, yeah, so that was kind of the idea. So, there was a process idea around that. And this is
  38. Gerhard Schöny: where I started with my PhD. And then,
  39. Gerhard Schöny: yeah, this took me then, I don't know,
  40. Gerhard Schöny: from starting with that, you know, building the first lab unit,
  41. Gerhard Schöny: uh, then
  42. Gerhard Schöny: my now co-founder and good friend, Johannes Fuchs, who also studied with me, um,
  43. Gerhard Schöny: came to to the research group and, and helped me with the work there.
  44. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, we, we, we were building our own lab units there,
  45. Gerhard Schöny: ah delivering the proof of concept. And this project got bigger and bigger. And then ultimately,
  46. Gerhard Schöny: there was the chance to stay at the university and really build up my own research group there
  47. Gerhard Schöny: for another five or six years, I spent then
  48. Gerhard Schöny: there working on carbon capture projects.
  49. Daniel Schaub: So, you were working in a lab.
  50. Daniel Schaub: What Where um, or what was the eureka moment? Like the aha moment that you said, "Okay, we can move from the lab
  51. Daniel Schaub: to found a spin-off and a company out of it?"
  52. Gerhard Schöny: So, I didn't directly went from, from Cuz that was point-source capture, right? That we developed with, with Shell.
  53. Gerhard Schöny: And uh, we were quite successful with that. So, we went really from a process idea,
  54. Gerhard Schöny: when I started with my PhD,
  55. Gerhard Schöny: up to the point where we demonstrated the process in an industrial environment here in Vienna.
  56. Gerhard Schöny: Project was called Vienna Green CO2
  57. Gerhard Schöny: at pilot scale. And we were running this unit for
  58. Gerhard Schöny: 1,000 hours of operation. And the unit was then also relocated by Shell to the Netherlands. So, that was really a successful project. And
  59. Gerhard Schöny: one thing I realized there was, cuz actually my plan always was, from starting with my PhD, to also pursue academic career more.
  60. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  61. Gerhard Schöny: So, I was really interested in that. But
  62. Gerhard Schöny: then,
  63. Gerhard Schöny: you know, in this, in this execution of this project, I saw, okay, there's so much more that you would need to do after you have your proof of concept, after you have started with,
  64. Gerhard Schöny: ah, starting this process even at pilot scale, right?
  65. Gerhard Schöny: And there are so many things, uh,
  66. Gerhard Schöny: that are still need to be discovered, innovative steps that need to be taken
  67. Gerhard Schöny: in order to really make
  68. Gerhard Schöny: this thing into a viable pro product. And, uh,
  69. Gerhard Schöny: um, this was something that, uh I mean, I always I'm also impact-driven kind of, right?
  70. Gerhard Schöny: So, it's not really
  71. Gerhard Schöny: I don't see so much value
  72. Gerhard Schöny: for myself in, you know, just finding something out, publishing it, and that's about it,
  73. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  74. Gerhard Schöny: uh, cuz, naturally, I mean, if, if you find someone who is also interested in the subject, maybe he will read it and then maybe get a citation or so.
  75. Daniel Schaub: And then store it in a library.
  76. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  77. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, sometimes, I think so. I mean, at least,
  78. Gerhard Schöny: yeah, I discovered this, uh,
  79. Gerhard Schöny: myself several times. Cuz we were doing things, and we went to conferences, and then there was this old professor, coryphée, from, I don't know, somewhere, said, "Yeah, really good job. We did that 30 years ago" or so.
  80. Gerhard Schöny: I mean, it's all It's really interesting, and uh I mean, finding something out, going into depth into some This is so- something that I really took from my days and years at at TU Wien.
  81. Gerhard Schöny: This is something that I still carry around today and that I use a lot is to to, you know, if you have a problem, something that
  82. Gerhard Schöny: someone never has thought about, how to solve it, how to to come to a solution,
  83. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  84. Gerhard Schöny: this is something that you really
  85. Gerhard Schöny: do everyday at the university if you have a good environment, right? And then, then that is something that I can benefit from.
  86. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  87. Gerhard Schöny: But uh, yeah, only academic work was
  88. Gerhard Schöny: uh, yeah, at least for me, it was not enough. So, then I moved on to the industry. Um,
  89. Gerhard Schöny: I spent 2 years
  90. Gerhard Schöny: in operations of, uh, yeah, in the biggest waste incineration fac- site here in Vienna,
  91. Daniel Schaub: In Spittelau?
  92. Gerhard Schöny: in No, that's
  93. Gerhard Schöny: uh the, the most famous one.
  94. Daniel Schaub: Ah, okay.
  95. Gerhard Schöny: But
  96. Gerhard Schöny: the the biggest one is Simmeringer Haide. So, that's when you take the motorway down to the airport, that's the first
  97. Daniel Schaub: Ah, Simmering.
  98. Gerhard Schöny: I always used to say that's the first time you start to smell something weird.
  99. Gerhard Schöny: That's
  100. Daniel Schaub: Simmering.
  101. Gerhard Schöny: that's Simmeringer Haide. The second one would be the refinery, right?
  102. Gerhard Schöny: So, um, yeah, that's the location. So, it's a really
  103. Gerhard Schöny: So, as a process engineer, it's kind of heaven cuz you have
  104. Gerhard Schöny: fluidized bed waste incineration, rotary kiln,
  105. Gerhard Schöny: uh, waste incineration. Uh, you have the
  106. Gerhard Schöny: sludge uh is is also incinerated there.
  107. Gerhard Schöny: So, it's a really really great place to be if you if you're interested in in in this kind of uh facilities.
  108. Daniel Schaub: Yeah.
  109. Daniel Schaub: Would be so cool.
  110. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  111. Gerhard Schöny: And uh
  112. Rahul Mishra: So, you said it's also a sewage uh treatment plant.
  113. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm. The sewage treatment plant is there,
  114. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  115. Gerhard Schöny: exactly, and also the, uh,
  116. Gerhard Schöny: the sewage, uh, sludge that is then produced, comes out of the of the treatment, uh, facility, is incinerated there
  117. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  118. Gerhard Schöny: in fluidized bed units, yeah.
  119. Rahul Mishra: And you spent some time also in Dieffenbacher for
  120. Gerhard Schöny: Exactly. So, that, uh, Dieffenbacher, uh formerly known as Bertsch Energy, was one of the project was the plant manufacturer in the in this, uh,
  121. Gerhard Schöny: pilot program that we had at TU Wien,
  122. Gerhard Schöny: Vienna Green CO2, and they built this pilot unit. So, I had
  123. Gerhard Schöny: some good connections to those people as well.
  124. Gerhard Schöny: They, they were approaching me and saying, "Okay, we need someone. We want to, um,
  125. Gerhard Schöny: yeah, step into new products. Uh, we want to enlarge our product portfolio."
  126. Gerhard Schöny: And they wanted to develop, uh, dual fluidized bed gasification systems.
  127. Gerhard Schöny: That's actually the the main process that got out of the Institute of Chemical Engineering, from the research group from Professor Hofbauer, who used to be my PhD supervisor and boss at at TU Wien.
  128. Gerhard Schöny: And, uh,
  129. Gerhard Schöny: yeah, so that's why he kind of approached me cuz we we knew each other.
  130. Gerhard Schöny: And then I took on this responsibility at at Dieffenbacher Energy. So, 2 years of, of senior
  131. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  132. Gerhard Schöny: uh process engineer,
  133. Gerhard Schöny: especially focusing on product development, yeah.
  134. Daniel Schaub: You just mentioned, so, ah,
  135. Daniel Schaub: technology that I am not
  136. Daniel Schaub: related to. So, maybe you could explain it briefly. What is fluid
  137. Daniel Schaub: fluidized bed system?
  138. Gerhard Schöny: Fluidized bed, so.
  139. Gerhard Schöny: I always say that everyone knows fluid fluidized bed units.
  140. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, so if you think of,
  141. Gerhard Schöny: uh, the lottery machine,
  142. Gerhard Schöny: you have these balls that come into
  143. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  144. Gerhard Schöny: this mixing thing.
  145. Gerhard Schöny: You know what I'm talking about?
  146. Daniel Schaub: Yeah, yeah.
  147. Gerhard Schöny: And then the the air is flowing from, from from the bottom into this system, and then all the balls are starting to move around.
  148. Rahul Mishra: Right.
  149. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  150. Gerhard Schöny: That's, actually,
  151. Gerhard Schöny: a fluidized bed unit. It's It's that simple. So, what you actually
  152. Gerhard Schöny: what what actually happens is, if you imagine like a a bed of sand, you pour it into a a container,
  153. Gerhard Schöny: and the container, in the bottom, has like
  154. Gerhard Schöny: something that we call a gas distributor.
  155. Gerhard Schöny: So, where you can introduce gas into that bed.
  156. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  157. Gerhard Schöny: And then what happens is there will be a force from the gas, uh, drag onto these particles.
  158. Gerhard Schöny: And if you increase the velocity,
  159. Gerhard Schöny: um, then this force increases. And at a certain point, the force is is just big enough to carry the whole material. And then this bed starts to act like a liquid.
  160. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  161. Gerhard Schöny: So, it's really, if you
  162. Gerhard Schöny: if you then have this reactor, if you would tilt it, the surface would, more or less, remain the same, like this, right?
  163. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  164. Gerhard Schöny: So, it behaves really like a liquid, even though it's solid particles.
  165. Gerhard Schöny: And this comes with ver- like various advantages, so, in process engineering, you can utilize that.
  166. Gerhard Schöny: So, also this point-source capture process was based on fluidized beds and, and and, so that was really the core background that we had in this project.
  167. Rahul Mishra: Clearly, you you are a researcher, and now you're getting into,
  168. Rahul Mishra: uh, real industrial asset,
  169. Rahul Mishra: but working, uh, working for your own company, looking into also the P&L, and looking into how the company has to scale, and you are a researcher yourself,
  170. Rahul Mishra: your in- your perspective of innovation has changed?
  171. Rahul Mishra: You think that the innovation is something that can be scaled industrially, or in the real life, or how do you perceive it now?
  172. Gerhard Schöny: Of course, you would not typically start like in an industrial environment, typically, unless you are a big company and you have the money available. We've
  173. Gerhard Schöny: basic research, right? So, the POC,
  174. Gerhard Schöny: and, and maybe first lab tests,
  175. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  176. Gerhard Schöny: and maybe pilot plants, that should happen there, most likely.
  177. Gerhard Schöny: But, uh, at a certain point, again, there's so much more that you would need to do.
  178. Gerhard Schöny: For example,
  179. Gerhard Schöny: in my role as Dieffenba- at Dieffenbacher Energy, I was working on gasification processes. So, basically,
  180. Gerhard Schöny: uh transferring waste or or biomass, or waste streams, like plastics or so,
  181. Gerhard Schöny: first into a gas, and then this gas can later be converted into a valuable
  182. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  183. Gerhard Schöny: product, like a mixed alcohol or a base chemical or
  184. Gerhard Schöny: me- methane, or whatever. You name it.
  185. Daniel Schaub: Okay.
  186. Gerhard Schöny: So, this core process, the gasification process, for example, that has been researched, that was like
  187. Gerhard Schöny: the main thing my professor was working on, Professor Hofbauer, for like decades, right?
  188. Gerhard Schöny: There have been, I don't know, he always tells me the number, I forget it, but let's say 100, above 100, way above 100
  189. Gerhard Schöny: PhD, sorry, Hermann, but I don't know the number. It's so many PhD theses have been going through his hands, right, around this subject. And,
  190. Rahul Mishra: Haha.
  191. Gerhard Schöny: uh, so there is
  192. Gerhard Schöny: enormous uh knowledge. And, but still, the things that, why these commercial plants that have been built,
  193. Gerhard Schöny: why why that did not work so well is mostly
  194. Gerhard Schöny: around the core process, right? So, the peripheral parts, like the
  195. Gerhard Schöny: how you cool your product gas that you produce, how you,
  196. Gerhard Schöny: uh, extract ash streams, how you introduce fuel streams, and, and things like this.
  197. Gerhard Schöny: And there's, I mean, especially at Dieffenbacher, I learned so much, and that that was really interesting, and the it was also very innovative, so it was not so different
  198. Gerhard Schöny: from from what we were doing at the university.
  199. Gerhard Schöny: It was just not so much around the core process itself anymore, right?
  200. Gerhard Schöny: Also, it's one thing to deliver a proof of concept in a
  201. Gerhard Schöny: rather regulated setting in a lab,
  202. Gerhard Schöny: but it's definitely way more challenging to
  203. Gerhard Schöny: have real-life operations,
  204. Gerhard Schöny: daily operations, reliable.
  205. Daniel Schaub: And you have goals, and you have
  206. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, exactly.
  207. Gerhard Schöny: So.
  208. Rahul Mishra: And, uh, we, we go into, uh,
  209. Rahul Mishra: the other part of the hard climate tech, uh, company,
  210. Rahul Mishra: but if you can also explain, because it was very interesting when you were, uh, telling us about the fluid flude bed,
  211. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  212. Rahul Mishra: if you can also explain DAC.
  213. Gerhard Schöny: In principle, there are different approaches, but the, the one that we are focusing on is, uh,
  214. Gerhard Schöny: something where we have a, a filter material. You can think of these, uh Do you know these these, uh, sachets that are that are packed with electronics, sometimes?
  215. Gerhard Schöny: Have you opened those? There are like this, uh, uh, transparent,
  216. Gerhard Schöny: uh, small balls in it
  217. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  218. Gerhard Schöny: that absorb the water that is
  219. Daniel Schaub: Ah, okay. Yeah, yeah.
  220. Rahul Mishra: Yes.
  221. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, within. Yeah. So, the silica balls.
  222. Daniel Schaub: In the shoes, or something.
  223. Gerhard Schöny: In the shoes.
  224. Rahul Mishra: Ah.
  225. Gerhard Schöny: Exactly.
  226. Daniel Schaub: Keep it.
  227. Gerhard Schöny: Exactly. You always have that, or sometimes it's packed with shoes or something.
  228. Gerhard Schöny: So, it's looks pretty much like this, eh? Color is a bit different, but anyways.
  229. Gerhard Schöny: But that's the that's the basis,
  230. Gerhard Schöny: and that's commercially available. And these materials, they are have functional groups on their surface.
  231. Gerhard Schöny: And these groups have the ability to selectively
  232. Gerhard Schöny: adsorb, or or capture, or or
  233. Gerhard Schöny: react with CO2 that is in their surrounding,
  234. Gerhard Schöny: even if it's as low concentrated as in the air.
  235. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  236. Gerhard Schöny: So, it's also, I think, used in, uh For example, in, in, in,
  237. Gerhard Schöny: uh, in space vessels or so. So, they also
  238. Gerhard Schöny: exhale CO2, the astronauts, right, and, and this CO2 needs to be captured.
  239. Gerhard Schöny: These kind of materials are actually used for for this purpose.
  240. Daniel Schaub: Ah, for close environments. Yeah, they have to clean
  241. Gerhard Schöny: Exactly.
  242. Daniel Schaub: somehow. Mhm.
  243. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  244. Gerhard Schöny: And uh or a submarine or something like this.
  245. Gerhard Schöny: And, uh, so this is the basis.
  246. Gerhard Schöny: And this material, you can imagine that this has these these distinct sites on the surface that can capture the CO2,
  247. Gerhard Schöny: and the amount of CO2 that they can take up
  248. Gerhard Schöny: um is, in principle, dependent on temperature. So, the lower the temperature, the more
  249. Gerhard Schöny: sites are available, can, or the more CO2 it can bind.
  250. Gerhard Schöny: The higher the temperature, the less.
  251. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  252. Gerhard Schöny: And also, if you think of the material and CO2 flying around the material,
  253. Gerhard Schöny: if there is a lot of pressure,
  254. Gerhard Schöny: uh, kind of pushing towards the material, so if the pressure is high, it's also more,
  255. Gerhard Schöny: uh, finding affinity or capacity
  256. Gerhard Schöny: than when you have vacuum, for example,
  257. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  258. Gerhard Schöny: applied. And this is the the basic principle is temperature vacuum swing adsorption. So, we, you have this system where you have this material.
  259. Gerhard Schöny: You pass over air
  260. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  261. Gerhard Schöny: over this material, and it captures CO2.
  262. Daniel Schaub: Uh, okay.
  263. Gerhard Schöny: And then when it's loaded, you need to heat it up again to a higher temperature, you apply vacuum, and then it releases the CO2 again.
  264. Gerhard Schöny: That's the fundamental principle of it.
  265. Gerhard Schöny: It's the same for amine scrubbing, as I mentioned before, for for post-combustion CO2 capture. And it was exactly the same that we have,
  266. Gerhard Schöny: uh, had in, in, in use for our point-source capture system that we developed with Shell. So, we know this material very well for
  267. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  268. Gerhard Schöny: like 15 years, almost, now.
  269. Daniel Schaub: And how is the, like the lifespan of this material? How long can you use it?
  270. Gerhard Schöny: It's a very important
  271. Gerhard Schöny: uh aspect, obviously, of the process.
  272. Gerhard Schöny: The the solvent lifetime and the Some of the very first movers in the DAC realm,
  273. Gerhard Schöny: uh, actually had
  274. Gerhard Schöny: this as a bottleneck in their, in their process setups that they really degraded the material after, let's say, 3 or 6 months of operation. So, that's obviously not something that is reliable and, and, and viable commercially.
  275. Gerhard Schöny: And, and here again, all the experience we gathered
  276. Gerhard Schöny: over the many, many years we were working on the point-source capture part with the exactly same material,
  277. Gerhard Schöny: working together with Shell, we had the opportunity to really study in detail what are the main drivers for these degradation processes that happen,
  278. Gerhard Schöny: what are the main, uh, operating conditions that you need to avoid in your process in order to
  279. Gerhard Schöny: also avoid the degradation to to to
  280. Gerhard Schöny: make it happen or to to to to happen. So, our DAC process, apart from the fact that we also apply different system to to bring the energy down,
  281. Gerhard Schöny: also has incorporated this thinking to avoid these conditions
  282. Gerhard Schöny: so that we can have a a longer lifetime. And
  283. Gerhard Schöny: the the short answer to your question is that we, at least, calculate with 3 to 4 years, but
  284. Daniel Schaub: Okay.
  285. Gerhard Schöny: the problem is we we run our units now for only a couple of months, so we really cannot prove this.
  286. Daniel Schaub: Okay.
  287. Gerhard Schöny: I mean, you cannot measure any degradation because it's really so low, and if if you avoid these conditions,
  288. Gerhard Schöny: that you cannot really detect it.
  289. Daniel Schaub: Yeah. And is it a rare material, or is common?
  290. Gerhard Schöny: So, our
  291. Gerhard Schöny: basic
  292. Gerhard Schöny: um,
  293. Gerhard Schöny: um, engineering,
  294. Gerhard Schöny: uh, thinking is that we use
  295. Gerhard Schöny: things that are there already,
  296. Gerhard Schöny: in order to be able to scale fast, right?
  297. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  298. Gerhard Schöny: So, what we did is we had the material at hand. It's not optimized for DAC. It's actually used for waste water treatment, typically.
  299. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  300. Gerhard Schöny: But it it it works, right, and it work works good enough. And uh, so, and it's commercially commercially available. So, there are
  301. Gerhard Schöny: companies, more companies than one, also, that is important,
  302. Gerhard Schöny: um, uh, where you can buy this kind of materials.
  303. Daniel Schaub: So, it's available and it's commercial.
  304. Gerhard Schöny: It's available and it's com- Yeah, and we actually We, yeah, what I wanted to say is we build the process around this material, that's why I got lost.
  305. Gerhard Schöny: Others really, if you look at,
  306. Gerhard Schöny: like, pioneers also in this field of DAC,
  307. Gerhard Schöny: they, they really want to focus on the their own
  308. Gerhard Schöny: uh particle development. They really want to keep the process
  309. Gerhard Schöny: as simple as possible, and they want to develop the perfect material in order or perfect material for different environments or so where they can operate.
  310. Daniel Schaub: Nobody is a new, a novel technology, so it's
  311. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  312. Rahul Mishra: But, um, now, um, just diving deep into DACworx.
  313. Rahul Mishra: Uh,
  314. Rahul Mishra: so you, you formed your,
  315. Rahul Mishra: um, it it's a spin-off, right? It's a spin-off from TU Wien.
  316. Gerhard Schöny: Yes, there was one, one investor from, from Silicon Valley, his name is Peter Relan,
  317. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  318. Gerhard Schöny: who was trying to to search for, uh,
  319. Gerhard Schöny: partners to bring
  320. Gerhard Schöny: or to develop, uh, new technology that can deliver carbon dioxide removal at competitive costs.
  321. Gerhard Schöny: He has a really great network in the US, right, with all the big names, universities.
  322. Gerhard Schöny: But something he keeps trying to say is that he could not find someone who could also, you know, translate
  323. Gerhard Schöny: their lab learnings and, and
  324. Gerhard Schöny: basic core principles,
  325. Gerhard Schöny: process ideas, into reality. So, he expanded his search, and then,
  326. Gerhard Schöny: eventually, he came across this Vienna Green CO2 project, and there he said, "Okay, there was a group really working with an industry partner and starting with an idea,
  327. Gerhard Schöny: and they were able to bring it
  328. Gerhard Schöny: up to the point where we demonstrated it at pilot scale.
  329. Gerhard Schöny: So, maybe I should talk to them." And that's what he did, and then,
  330. Gerhard Schöny: uh, like in the very first discussions, I was also involved, together with Professor Hofbauer again, and
  331. Gerhard Schöny: my co-founder, Johannes Fuchs. And then Hermann then drafted this, you know, this, uh, project,
  332. Gerhard Schöny: uh, uh, proposal where he said, "Okay, we we would need to do some tests with the material, and then we do this and that, and in year three or so, we do this prototype, and then let's see,
  333. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  334. Gerhard Schöny: where we get from there." And he said, "That's a good idea, but let's flip it, right?
  335. Gerhard Schöny: Let's build your prototype, and then then"
  336. Gerhard Schöny: And and this is how the collaboration started, kind of, right?
  337. Gerhard Schöny: Then 2 years, uh, of of of of work in this pace cuz he was really like pushing us, uh, or or them, I was not so much involved in the very beginning, but my co-founder was, and
  338. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  339. Gerhard Schöny: they built one prototype after the other, and one process innovation of the uh led to the to the next one, and then they came to a to a system where they said, "Okay, this is something that we should
  340. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  341. Gerhard Schöny: work on more, and and that we consider that can scale this process out."
  342. Daniel Schaub: Yeah. I mean, it might help a lot if they reached you, like, "We want to invest in your research." It It It's great. And
  343. Daniel Schaub: why, I mean, they are coming from Silicon Valley. I mean, the cradle of all
  344. Daniel Schaub: innovation. What was the,
  345. Daniel Schaub: your motivation to,
  346. Daniel Schaub: to found the company here in Europe and not in U.S.?
  347. Gerhard Schöny: I mean, I I would not dare to to say that I'm aware of how the how the environment really looks like in the Silicon Valley.
  348. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, I I've been there once, uh, for for an event that we got invited to
  349. Gerhard Schöny: from our investor, but
  350. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  351. Gerhard Schöny: I think the focus there is more like on on asset light things, software.
  352. Daniel Schaub: Okay.
  353. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, I mean, that's the impression that I got here when it comes to the deep tech, right?
  354. Rahul Mishra: But the the In terms of also the hard technology, not just Silicon Valley, but U.S.,
  355. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  356. Rahul Mishra: uh, as a whole, to push the technology, they, did they try to get you to U.S., or they were fine with you,
  357. Rahul Mishra: uh, moving in, in Austria?
  358. Gerhard Schöny: The the environment that we have here is, is quite, quite nice, because also as we have TU Wien, we have good relations with TU Wien, we can use, like, their labs or we collaborate with them.
  359. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, we also have our own production facilities already here, uh, in Vienna through the second company that my, my co-founder owns.
  360. Gerhard Schöny: So, what we we built our prototypes
  361. Gerhard Schöny: here as well. If you do all this, uh, prototyping and scaling, and
  362. Gerhard Schöny: if you have everything in, in one hand, and if you don't need to, you know, produce those documents and then get someone to build you the stuff, and then get someone to operate the stuff, if everything comes together,
  363. Gerhard Schöny: and this is really what we have here,
  364. Gerhard Schöny: then you can move fast. And that, that is, I think, what was the, the main benefit.
  365. Gerhard Schöny: For the deployment itself, I mean, it used to be the case for the for the former administration, at least, that DAC
  366. Gerhard Schöny: had very good,
  367. Gerhard Schöny: uh, you know, exploitation or or deployment environment in the US.
  368. Gerhard Schöny: You had, uh, tax credits there, you had this, uh, DOE fundings for for the big tech hubs, etc.
  369. Gerhard Schöny: So, there was
  370. Gerhard Schöny: of course, everyone was kind of inclined, also Climeworks is one of the biggest players, they try to, to, or they already had been awarded for a bigger project there.
  371. Gerhard Schöny: But the new administration
  372. Gerhard Schöny: seems to have different approaches when it comes to to these kind of technologies.
  373. Daniel Schaub: Things. Yeah.
  374. Gerhard Schöny: And so all of these these things stopped, right?
  375. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  376. Gerhard Schöny: And if you compare to what is going on now in Europe, and maybe we can touch upon that,
  377. Gerhard Schöny: uh, uh, later, also,
  378. Gerhard Schöny: a lot of good things happen here that could be catalysing also market,
  379. Gerhard Schöny: uh, developments here in Europe.
  380. Daniel Schaub: Yes. Nice.
  381. Rahul Mishra: Yeah.
  382. Daniel Schaub: And and now that you worked also in the,
  383. Daniel Schaub: incineration plant,
  384. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  385. Daniel Schaub: so working with utilities, like
  386. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  387. Daniel Schaub: having the industrial language,
  388. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  389. Daniel Schaub: how much that have, uh, helped you
  390. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  391. Daniel Schaub: to, to try now to sell them the solution?
  392. Gerhard Schöny: This is now at the point where we are now. This is really coming more and more into the focus of, obviously, for us, because
  393. Gerhard Schöny: up to last year, at least, it was more like on really still,
  394. Gerhard Schöny: uh, demonstrating the process, building a pilot unit. Now, we have a Since last year, we have, uh,
  395. Gerhard Schöny: kind of a first product in operation at our site. Uh, it's a downscaled version of our commercial product, but it's it it has the architecture of our commercial product, right?
  396. Gerhard Schöny: And we run it, and and now it's really about getting a project, getting project partners, and then clients,
  397. Gerhard Schöny: uh, to work with us this year or next year to really demonstrate our technology at larger scale.
  398. Gerhard Schöny: And and there, obviously, it helped a lot to also in the designing process of our product, and we are still doing that everyday,
  399. Gerhard Schöny: to think of the operators, right? Really have the glasses of the operators on and, and think of all They don't care really what the process is doing, right?
  400. Gerhard Schöny: They want to have CO2 captured at the lowest costs, and that's the ultimate figure that they are looking for. They don't want to have,
  401. Daniel Schaub: The results.
  402. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  403. Gerhard Schöny: you know, huge efforts with maintenance. They They want to have it reliably. They want to have all these things, right?
  404. Gerhard Schöny: And I think if you if you were working for a couple of spent some time in operations,
  405. Gerhard Schöny: uh, it helps a lot.
  406. Rahul Mishra: Getting into that, uh, more,
  407. Rahul Mishra: um,
  408. Rahul Mishra: DACworx, you target, um, almost 30% lower energy than the current benchmark.
  409. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  410. Rahul Mishra: Um, uh how What exactly is the other, uh, DAC technologies are doing that,
  411. Rahul Mishra: uh, that is compromising the energy efficiency? And what's,
  412. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  413. Rahul Mishra: uh, how are you doing it that you are able to
  414. Rahul Mishra: benchmark that at 30% lower?
  415. Gerhard Schöny: And lastly, we found out it's it's closer to 50 to 60% lower. But, uh,
  416. Rahul Mishra: Haha.
  417. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  418. Gerhard Schöny: anyways, the the I the the
  419. Gerhard Schöny: fundamental part of uh of of the process is that you need to
  420. Gerhard Schöny: heat up the material after it's been being loaded, right, this filter material. So, you take up CO2 from the ambient air, which has let's Today, it's it's a nice weather, let's say, 10°C,
  421. Gerhard Schöny: and then you need it to heat it up to,
  422. Gerhard Schöny: let's say, 70, 80°C or so in order to release it again.
  423. Gerhard Schöny: The first generation systems, they wanted to do this both of these steps in one
  424. Gerhard Schöny: compartment, in one single reactor. It's like,
  425. Gerhard Schöny: you can I mean, it's like having one room being operated
  426. Gerhard Schöny: as fridge and as an oven,
  427. Gerhard Schöny: alternating. So, this really intuitively, that this tells you already that this must come with some
  428. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  429. Gerhard Schöny: parasitic energy load, and this is this parasitic energy load is actually substantial.
  430. Gerhard Schöny: It also comes with a lot of operational challenges,
  431. Gerhard Schöny: um, and,
  432. Gerhard Schöny: uh, this is why we thought,
  433. Gerhard Schöny: and this is again coming back from the experience we had with, uh, the
  434. Gerhard Schöny: former projects on on post-combustion capture, that we
  435. Gerhard Schöny: separate those zones. So, the part where we,
  436. Gerhard Schöny: uh, take up the CO2, the adsorption, it's called,
  437. Gerhard Schöny: and the part where we regenerate the filter material again,
  438. Gerhard Schöny: into two different zones.
  439. Gerhard Schöny: And the price for this is that you need to move the material,
  440. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  441. Gerhard Schöny: uh, between, uh, those zones, which is something that we
  442. Gerhard Schöny: kind of,
  443. Gerhard Schöny: I mean,
  444. Gerhard Schöny: we we did that in the past in the post-combustion step, cuz this also had separated locations, and it's
  445. Gerhard Schöny: something as a fluidization engineer,
  446. Gerhard Schöny: uh, you're,
  447. Gerhard Schöny: I mean, trained to do. So, this is how to move that in order to also maintain the integrity of the material,
  448. Gerhard Schöny: and how to do it,
  449. Gerhard Schöny: you know, energy efficiently, etc., etc.
  450. Gerhard Schöny: There are a lot of more, uh, innovations, especially in the regeneration part, where we save a lot of energy,
  451. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  452. Gerhard Schöny: but the core part is really the separation of those two zones.
  453. Rahul Mishra: And, and do you have, uh, any,
  454. Rahul Mishra: uh, like
  455. Rahul Mishra: technology, or when you benchmark with the industry right now currently in Europe,
  456. Rahul Mishra: uh, are you novel, or they're already existing? I mean, they're already existing techno- uh, companies, for sure.
  457. Rahul Mishra: In in your phase, your you're still in a, let's call it, a start-up
  458. Rahul Mishra: phase, and in your first pilots,
  459. Rahul Mishra: uh, are there companies, uh, which are in more advanced stage,
  460. Rahul Mishra: or how what is the ecosystem around it?
  461. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm. Yeah. So, for the for the same process that we use, there's obviously Climeworks, I've mentioned the name already,
  462. Gerhard Schöny: who's pioneering this,
  463. Gerhard Schöny: uh, and, and it's also important that that someone is pioneering this, cuz you can also learn maybe from from some of their mistakes they take.
  464. Daniel Schaub: Yeah.
  465. Daniel Schaub: It helps.
  466. Gerhard Schöny: And and they do a lot of work,
  467. Gerhard Schöny: most likely also into developing this,
  468. Gerhard Schöny: uh, this, these markets that were are required. TRL level wise, if you want to put it this way,
  469. Gerhard Schöny: uh, we're certainly at at 7 or so. So, this means we demonstrated in a
  470. Gerhard Schöny: in in a real kind of environment, so,
  471. Gerhard Schöny: which is you just need to place your DAC system out into the ambient air.
  472. Gerhard Schöny: Um,
  473. Gerhard Schöny: uh so between 6 and 7, I would say, is is the technology readiness level. And we really want to push it to to 8 and beyond that now with with with this demonstration plant, with this reference project that we are,
  474. Gerhard Schöny: um,
  475. Gerhard Schöny: trying to do and and land,
  476. Gerhard Schöny: uh, this year.
  477. Daniel Schaub: Nice. And also
  478. Daniel Schaub: we were,
  479. Daniel Schaub: um, seeing that your solution for direct carbon,
  480. Daniel Schaub: eh, air capture,
  481. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  482. Daniel Schaub: it can be used also together with district heating.
  483. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  484. Daniel Schaub: Kind of, so, how does it work, this
  485. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  486. Daniel Schaub: symbiosis?
  487. Gerhard Schöny: Basically, there are different energy inputs in our into our system.
  488. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, obviously,
  489. Gerhard Schöny: I said you need to,
  490. Gerhard Schöny: uh, pass air over the filter material. This requires blowers to to move the air.
  491. Daniel Schaub: So, electrical?
  492. Gerhard Schöny: That's electrical energy.
  493. Daniel Schaub: Okay.
  494. Gerhard Schöny: You need We We have vacuum in in our regeneration, so that needs vacuum pumps to drain,
  495. Gerhard Schöny: uh, uh,
  496. Gerhard Schöny: gas, and and to produce the vacuum. That's again electrical energy.
  497. Gerhard Schöny: But the main part, about roughly 80% of of of the total energy that we
  498. Gerhard Schöny: that you need to to introduce into our system, is heat to produce steam that we use
  499. Gerhard Schöny: in our system for,
  500. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  501. Gerhard Schöny: for the regeneration part, for heating of our
  502. Gerhard Schöny: material, and for, um,
  503. Daniel Schaub: To release the CO2.
  504. Gerhard Schöny: to release the CO2, exactly. And, uh,
  505. Gerhard Schöny: and this steam is, it's vacuum steam
  506. Gerhard Schöny: because we run the regeneration at vacuum, so it can,
  507. Gerhard Schöny: um, be produced at temperatures as low as 70°C, for example, or maybe 80,
  508. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  509. Gerhard Schöny: and this means that
  510. Gerhard Schöny: the heat that you need to supply
  511. Gerhard Schöny: in order to produce that steam,
  512. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  513. Gerhard Schöny: could could have temperatures as low as 90°C, or or even lower
  514. Gerhard Schöny: if you design for it, and this
  515. Gerhard Schöny: could be very well integrated with district heat se- uh systems, for example, yeah.
  516. Gerhard Schöny: Or with, you know, industrial processes that have waste heat streams,
  517. Gerhard Schöny: uh, available,
  518. Gerhard Schöny: uh, at these temperature levels. And they are
  519. Gerhard Schöny: there are a lot of these, uh, processes,
  520. Gerhard Schöny: actually, that produce this kind of of waste heat.
  521. Gerhard Schöny: Um, question is always whether
  522. Gerhard Schöny: you can integrate really if, cuz no one will operate their processes in order to, to,
  523. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  524. Gerhard Schöny: you know, keep our our DAC machines running. But this is certainly something that we look into, and we have a research project going on currently with TU Wien and Joanneum Research, it's called ADVANCE, and,
  525. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  526. Gerhard Schöny: it yeah, there we look at the potentials here in Austria, especially,
  527. Gerhard Schöny: and and and how they are.
  528. Gerhard Schöny: And I think Vienna has, actually, quite good,
  529. Gerhard Schöny: uh, conditions.
  530. Daniel Schaub: Huge infrastructure, yeah.
  531. Gerhard Schöny: Yes.
  532. Daniel Schaub: So, you
  533. Daniel Schaub: capture the carbon with the this,
  534. Daniel Schaub: uh, material. Then you heat it up to release it.
  535. Daniel Schaub: Then you store it,
  536. Daniel Schaub: right, in a gas version.
  537. Daniel Schaub: So, how do you What do you do with the CO2 after, and yeah, what is the What What are the products?
  538. Rahul Mishra: Ju- Just one question in between, before that. You were saying that you, you started in Vienna.
  539. Rahul Mishra: Uh,
  540. Rahul Mishra: how
  541. Rahul Mishra: like, what is the potential? Like, how many industrial sites which are already,
  542. Rahul Mishra: uh,
  543. Rahul Mishra: they have the potential to be DAC ready, if we, we may call it?
  544. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm. I mean, DAC ready is,
  545. Gerhard Schöny: I think,
  546. Gerhard Schöny: uh, what you said is is is the more critical part currently, with regards to being DAC ready, and that is what what are you doing with the CO2, right?
  547. Gerhard Schöny: Um, from my perspective. And that
  548. Gerhard Schöny: here in, in, in Austria, I mean, we have
  549. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  550. Gerhard Schöny: actually decided on a governmental,
  551. Gerhard Schöny: uh, level that we want to Cuz it's still legally forbidden, right, to store CO2 underground unless you do it for research purposes.
  552. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  553. Gerhard Schöny: But it's actually
  554. Gerhard Schöny: um, the government said, "Okay, we we need to get rid of this,
  555. Gerhard Schöny: uh, and, uh, we need to allow for, for underground sun- uh, underground storage, uh, CO2 storage, in order to
  556. Gerhard Schöny: be able to
  557. Gerhard Schöny: keep our keep track on, on, on our, uh, climate goals, right?
  558. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  559. Gerhard Schöny: So,
  560. Gerhard Schöny: for hard to abate emissions, like waste incineration plants, like cement plants,
  561. Gerhard Schöny: so the bigger emitters, we need that. But we also
  562. Gerhard Schöny: need a lot of CDR to
  563. Gerhard Schöny: to happen, right, technical CDR. So, technical carbon dioxide removal in order to stick to our climate plans.
  564. Gerhard Schöny: We We were involved in the carbon elaboration of the carbon management strategy, and I think
  565. Gerhard Schöny: the range was something between one, if I'm not mistaken,
  566. Gerhard Schöny: but it it's 1.5, 7 or so, 2 to 7 megatons of of CO2 being captured annually.
  567. Gerhard Schöny: So, that's, uh,
  568. Gerhard Schöny: um,
  569. Gerhard Schöny: you know, from the atmosphere, removed from the atmosphere, in order to to be climate-neutral in 20 2050,
  570. Gerhard Schöny: already by 2040. So,
  571. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  572. Gerhard Schöny: this is a lot of CO2, right? So, if you compare that to the total emissions, which is 70 megatons something,
  573. Gerhard Schöny: it's less now, but, uh, something in that range. So, 65 to 70, roughly.
  574. Gerhard Schöny: So, it's it's it's up to 10%
  575. Gerhard Schöny: of that that we emit currently, we need to capture from the atmosphere.
  576. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  577. Daniel Schaub: Yeah, because it could be used, uh, for synthetic fuels,
  578. Daniel Schaub: also. We have a friend who is storing CO2 in materials
  579. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  580. Daniel Schaub: for construction, or
  581. Gerhard Schöny: Lukas Huber from SolidCrete.
  582. Daniel Schaub: Yeah, Lukas from SolidCrete.
  583. Rahul Mishra: Yeah. Haha.
  584. Gerhard Schöny: Greetings to Lukas.
  585. Gerhard Schöny: Yes. Yeah, that would would be also very interesting, uh, to store it in, in this kind of things.
  586. Gerhard Schöny: And I also think that utilization of CO2 from coming from DAC, uh, processes will be
  587. Daniel Schaub: The green CO2.
  588. Gerhard Schöny: green CO2 to feed as a feed stock for synthetic aviation fuels, for example. So, there's the ReFuelEU Act,
  589. Daniel Schaub: Okay.
  590. Gerhard Schöny: Aviation Act, uh,
  591. Gerhard Schöny: that demands that these synthetic fuels, the the addition of this these kind of synthetic fuels to the the aviation fuels that we use currently in Europe,
  592. Gerhard Schöny: needs to increase significantly over the next
  593. Gerhard Schöny: one or two decades.
  594. Gerhard Schöny: And, uh, so this triggers a lot of,
  595. Gerhard Schöny: you know, renewable or sustainable CO2 demand, and this cannot come only from biomass, in my point of view, cuz
  596. Gerhard Schöny: there's always a competition, right? I mean, if you, for example, BECCS
  597. Gerhard Schöny: and DACs, if this comparison is is always on the table.
  598. Gerhard Schöny: Um, so if you look at
  599. Gerhard Schöny: the demand of like footprint demand of a capture unit, the DAC capture unit, for,
  600. Gerhard Schöny: let's say, a capacity of 1,000 tonnes per annum,
  601. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  602. Gerhard Schöny: that would be roughly fit into this room, right?
  603. Gerhard Schöny: That's footprint of this unit that we're talking about.
  604. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  605. Gerhard Schöny: And now imagine how much trees you would need to grow over a year to capture Like, what the the size of the So, that's,
  606. Gerhard Schöny: accordingly, I mean, maybe that's not 100% correct for every sort of trees, but that's it's closer to 1 square kilometre, right?
  607. Daniel Schaub: Wow.
  608. Gerhard Schöny: So, that's a huge difference, right?
  609. Gerhard Schöny: Alone from the footprint-wise, right?
  610. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, I'm I'm not a big fan of bashing the other against another techn- cuz we you we will need every technology that
  611. Daniel Schaub: Everything.
  612. Gerhard Schöny: available, right?
  613. Rahul Mishra: Haha.
  614. Gerhard Schöny: And, uh,
  615. Gerhard Schöny: but, yeah, DAC
  616. Gerhard Schöny: will also need to supply this demand, uh,
  617. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  618. Gerhard Schöny: when it comes to to to to this sustainable aviation fuels. And I also see the market to to be around earlier than the real big,
  619. Gerhard Schöny: uh, you know, markets for for carbon dioxide removal.
  620. Daniel Schaub: I think we should move forward to CEE region.
  621. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  622. Daniel Schaub: Uh, because it's the
  623. Daniel Schaub: it's the region with the highest emission maybe, because of the gas dependency,
  624. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  625. Daniel Schaub: uh, carbon
  626. Daniel Schaub: available source to,
  627. Daniel Schaub: to burn and generate.
  628. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  629. Daniel Schaub: So, um,
  630. Daniel Schaub: how do you see the potential of the region and and which,
  631. Daniel Schaub: uh, condition have to be there to,
  632. Daniel Schaub: to implement this kind of solutions?
  633. Gerhard Schöny: One thing I I need to be clear on, and I want to be very clear on, is that DAC cannot be an excuse for emitting.
  634. Daniel Schaub: No, no, no, for sure. It's, ah
  635. Gerhard Schöny: So, you need to do everything you can do on the,
  636. Gerhard Schöny: uh, decarbonisation pathways that we all want to to to see happen in order to to bring down the emissions, right?
  637. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  638. Gerhard Schöny: Then it's about residual,
  639. Gerhard Schöny: um,
  640. Gerhard Schöny: uh, emissions that you need to compensate still,
  641. Daniel Schaub: Yeah.
  642. Gerhard Schöny: uh, and then also legacy emissions, right?
  643. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  644. Gerhard Schöny: Cuz we might not, you know, we're not on the track for the 1.5 or the maybe,
  645. Gerhard Schöny: not even the 2°C.
  646. Daniel Schaub: 2°.
  647. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, so this is
  648. Gerhard Schöny: like a clear motivation everywhere to to to do carbon dioxide removal.
  649. Gerhard Schöny: Also, what I what I would argue though is that maybe can also like in a transition, so, I don't think that Cuz it's also an export-heavy,
  650. Gerhard Schöny: uh, kind of region, right? A lot of manufacturing is going on in the East,
  651. Gerhard Schöny: um,
  652. Gerhard Schöny: uh, which is also something that we would like to benefit from, because it's it's a bit cheaper to produce there as compared to here in Austria, obviously. And,
  653. Gerhard Schöny: um, so in order to bring down the,
  654. Gerhard Schöny: uh, the footprint of the products that are exported from this region, I think
  655. Gerhard Schöny: maybe it it's more economically feasible and viable to do that via carbon dioxide removal somewhere where where it's suitable,
  656. Gerhard Schöny: then I mean,
  657. Gerhard Schöny: I don't know if if we would have all the green steel available at the time we need it in order to bring down the footprint of these products as well. So, maybe this is an angle that that I would see for for this region. But
  658. Gerhard Schöny: when it comes to, uh, compensating for natural gas use
  659. Gerhard Schöny: or so for energy produ- electricity production, for example, or for heating,
  660. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  661. Daniel Schaub: Or hard-to-abate industries.
  662. Gerhard Schöny: For hard-to-abate, as I mentioned, like cement plants and and waste incineration plants, they for example, they they would need, most likely, cuz technologically-wise, there's not much room to do.
  663. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  664. Gerhard Schöny: So, you need to to capture whatever is emitted there.
  665. Gerhard Schöny: You can also not capture 100% of what is emitted there, cuz that is also not,
  666. Gerhard Schöny: uh, economically viable, right? So,
  667. Daniel Schaub: How much can you capture?
  668. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, from a flue gas, typically, what you have in point-source capture, it's 90%, right? So, 10
  669. Daniel Schaub: Ah, it's good.
  670. Gerhard Schöny: It's Yeah, but there's we need to be zero, right?
  671. Daniel Schaub: Yeah.
  672. Gerhard Schöny: But, again, DAC is something that also needs to compensate for these residual 10% coming out of the capture plants. So, it's
  673. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  674. Gerhard Schöny: not the whole story if you say, "Okay, I have a post-combustion capture system there, and then everything is fine. It's decarbonised." It's not,
  675. Gerhard Schöny: never, right?
  676. Daniel Schaub: Okay.
  677. Gerhard Schöny: So,
  678. Gerhard Schöny: there will be a lot of residual emissions, still, also for this.
  679. Rahul Mishra: Can you can you tell the capacity for the first, uh, facility,
  680. Rahul Mishra: uh, in, in Europe,
  681. Rahul Mishra: uh, for DAC, uh, where it would be, and what is the capacity?
  682. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, where is, uh,
  683. Gerhard Schöny: yeah, we're still looking for a good project. I mean, there's, uh,
  684. Gerhard Schöny: ideally,
  685. Gerhard Schöny: uh, cuz I you will learn so much from such a project, right?
  686. Gerhard Schöny: Not so much on the technological side, because, again, our pilot systems that we run now, they really have exactly the same architecture as as the commercial plants that we're going to build.
  687. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  688. Gerhard Schöny: So, the the capacity of the this pilot plant is in the area of 100 tonne per year.
  689. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  690. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, and the scale-up will be a factor, depending on really,
  691. Gerhard Schöny: uh, also the market, but, most likely, we have a low scaling factor now, three to four,
  692. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  693. Gerhard Schöny: uh, rather than 10, but it will be in the range less than 10
  694. Gerhard Schöny: uh, less than 1,000 tonnes per annum, most likely, for one single standard, DAC standard. And, uh,
  695. Gerhard Schöny: ideally, we can demonstrate the the operation of this standard somewhere close to to Vienna, or in Vienna, even, cuz, uh,
  696. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  697. Gerhard Schöny: you we will learn so much from the operation, right? Also the like the
  698. Gerhard Schöny: non-technical stuff, like the permitting
  699. Daniel Schaub: All the supply chains.
  700. Gerhard Schöny: process, the supply chains, how you, you know, work together with with other contracting companies and and
  701. Gerhard Schöny: with with the client, with the utilities, and, etc.
  702. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  703. Gerhard Schöny: So, I think also as a young company, even though we have some experience, obviously, in from from the industry,
  704. Gerhard Schöny: there will be a lot of things to learn from from that perspective, and the closer you are to the project, the better it is.
  705. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  706. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, so so, yeah, having said that, that would be the ideal thing. We We have some some more concrete discussions for project
  707. Gerhard Schöny: developments in in in Germany,
  708. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  709. Gerhard Schöny: but also through our US partners, uh, like op-
  710. Gerhard Schöny: outside of Europe. So, those are the more concrete projects that we are currently talking about.
  711. Daniel Schaub: And to choose the the the location, you need proximity to
  712. Daniel Schaub: waste heat, grid connection, and buyers?
  713. Daniel Schaub: Or
  714. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  715. Daniel Schaub: like CO2?
  716. Gerhard Schöny: Depends a bit on the on the environment. So, again, so there are basically these two,
  717. Gerhard Schöny: uh, potential,
  718. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  719. Gerhard Schöny: uh, deployment pathways. One is the the the e-fuel part, or the synthetic aviation fuel part.
  720. Gerhard Schöny: So, there are regions like the one that you're initially coming from, where you have conditions,
  721. Gerhard Schöny: uh, for example, where you have, I don't know, about 7,000 hours of of wind,
  722. Daniel Schaub: Chile.
  723. Gerhard Schöny: full load wind energy available. So, there these In this regions,
  724. Gerhard Schöny: you you have low electricity prices because you can produce it with wind, for example.
  725. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  726. Gerhard Schöny: And, and, um,
  727. Gerhard Schöny: and then you can have low-cost hydrogen produced, and with this hydrogen,
  728. Gerhard Schöny: if you have the carbon from
  729. Gerhard Schöny: any molecule available, you can then synthesize these kind of base chemicals like the e-methanol or
  730. Gerhard Schöny: There are different synthesis routes, right? I'm not an expert here, but
  731. Gerhard Schöny: basically, all the hydrocarbon
  732. Gerhard Schöny: products that come out of this synthesis routes, they need carbon and hydrogen,
  733. Daniel Schaub: Ja.
  734. Gerhard Schöny: and, uh,
  735. Gerhard Schöny: these regions where you have this renewable energies available, they are also lacking in in in biomass,
  736. Gerhard Schöny: all right? So, also the Middle East, for example. If If you go there, it's
  737. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  738. Gerhard Schöny: uh biomass is not abundantly available. So, you need the carbon to come from somewhere else, and
  739. Gerhard Schöny: there,
  740. Gerhard Schöny: uh, direct air capture can make a lo- a lot of sense, right?
  741. Gerhard Schöny: Other route would be, uh, storage.
  742. Gerhard Schöny: So, really,
  743. Gerhard Schöny: uh, if there are some clients, uh, around the world, uh, that really
  744. Gerhard Schöny: uh, try to to set up these projects where they can also sell the to the credits
  745. Gerhard Schöny: for for storing CO2 that was harvested from the air, so net CO2, uh, removal
  746. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  747. Gerhard Schöny: from the air, and sell the credits, and for, yeah,
  748. Gerhard Schöny: there, obviously, you need these kind of project locations where they have a storage site.
  749. Rahul Mishra: And this, uh, 1,000,
  750. Rahul Mishra: uh,
  751. Rahul Mishra: tonne facility, is it going to,
  752. Rahul Mishra: I mean, I don't know about the size, like how big is it? Is it a small,
  753. Rahul Mishra: uh, facility? Is it a big?
  754. Rahul Mishra: And,
  755. Rahul Mishra: uh,
  756. Rahul Mishra: would you would you rather, uh, build small smaller ones, or if you go into, like, Middle Eastern market, where
  757. Rahul Mishra: there's really absolute need for it as well, and make a mega one?
  758. Gerhard Schöny: That's a very good question and a question that we were,
  759. Gerhard Schöny: uh, heavily discussing over the last few months. So, my perspective here is that, um,
  760. Gerhard Schöny: first you need to look at the basic techno-economics of our system. And if you look at it, and we did that for one certain project in Africa that we tried to do last year,
  761. Gerhard Schöny: we came up with roughly 70% of our CO2 costs that,
  762. Gerhard Schöny: uh, fro- for our DAC system come from CapEx, right?
  763. Gerhard Schöny: So, bringing down the So, we really
  764. Gerhard Schöny: process-wise, we really kind of solve Even though, like in the public debate, it's when you talk about
  765. Gerhard Schöny: or you read something a- about DAC, everyone is talking about the energy. I think,
  766. Gerhard Schöny: process-wise, I mean, there is a lot of room for improvements still, new solvent material, etc.,
  767. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  768. Gerhard Schöny: but we we solved that part, right? Now, it's really about the CapEx, and,
  769. Gerhard Schöny: uh, there's a huge potential to bring that down, because we were calculating
  770. Gerhard Schöny: these numbers still for considering self-production here in Austria. So, if you go to other places, like in the, uh, East Eastern Europe, for example,
  771. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  772. Gerhard Schöny: produce there, if you then, of especially, go for standardization and modularization, where you can have pre-assembled
  773. Gerhard Schöny: modules being shipped to the site and, and less, uh, project site activities, etc.,
  774. Gerhard Schöny: then you can substantially bring down the CapEx, engineering costs go go down, etc., etc. So, this is what we are trying to do. And then the question is,
  775. Gerhard Schöny: is the unit big, is not so much,
  776. Gerhard Schöny: um,
  777. Gerhard Schöny: I mean, the real question is, you can have individual modules.
  778. Gerhard Schöny: Like, think of a Lego
  779. Gerhard Schöny: uh, part, right?
  780. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  781. Gerhard Schöny: You can build big,
  782. Gerhard Schöny: uh, I don't know if you've been to Lego World or Lego House, so,
  783. Daniel Schaub: Yeah, it's crazy.
  784. Gerhard Schöny: huge things you can build with this small bricks, right, because it's modular, right?
  785. Gerhard Schöny: So, it doesn't necessarily mean that if you do modularization that you can't be be, uh, built big, right?
  786. Gerhard Schöny: Um, still have your standardized modules. Where the cost optimum lies, I don't know.
  787. Gerhard Schöny: I mean, there are people saying smaller units, completely pre-assembled, ship it there, and just erect it, and then, you know,
  788. Gerhard Schöny: there are a lot of benefits coming from that. So, and the first units that we might want to build are exactly this. So, you have
  789. Gerhard Schöny: completely prefabricated, pre-assembled, pre-tested also, DAC,
  790. Gerhard Schöny: uh, standards,
  791. Gerhard Schöny: uh, that go to the client site, and then you just need a crane, put it there,
  792. Gerhard Schöny: bolt it down to to to to the foundations, and then, uh, connect it to the utilities, and then then it's operational.
  793. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, so this is what we are, in a first step, are are going to. So,
  794. Daniel Schaub: Yeah.
  795. Gerhard Schöny: and then you the costs come down by simply, you know, ordering multiple of these.
  796. Daniel Schaub: Volume.
  797. Gerhard Schöny: Volume, yeah.
  798. Daniel Schaub: So, uh, since
  799. Daniel Schaub: we have you here, we have to go to policy-wise.
  800. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  801. Daniel Schaub: So,
  802. Daniel Schaub: in general, how do you see the European policy for air capture, carbon capture in general?
  803. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  804. Daniel Schaub: What is your vision about it?
  805. Gerhard Schöny: As I mentioned, we we got the chance to be involved in the in the Austrian carbon management strategy, with regards to the working group that was working on on on on carbon dioxide removal, and through that, we we
  806. Gerhard Schöny: we're also, uh, had a better view on that. I'm I'm not a policy maker, so I'm not completely aware of everything, but in general, what is really great is now, uh, that we have the CRCF, this
  807. Gerhard Schöny: uh, Carbon Removals Certification Framework available in Europe, which basically
  808. Gerhard Schöny: gives you the guidelines, the it's a playbook for how this carbon credit market will work, how the quality checks will be,
  809. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  810. Gerhard Schöny: who is going to certify and how, who can sell them,
  811. Gerhard Schöny: and how you can buy them. So, so kind of this is how you also calculate the net removals for every every, uh, technology that you can apply.
  812. Daniel Schaub: To standardize the process,
  813. Gerhard Schöny: Exactly.
  814. Daniel Schaub: how to measure how much
  815. Gerhard Schöny: Exactly.
  816. Daniel Schaub: are you capturing.
  817. Gerhard Schöny: So, what is like the How do you calculate the carbon footprint of your
  818. Gerhard Schöny: energy supply? For example, waste heat, we were discussing this before. So, waste heat is considered as carbon neutral if it has not been utilized before,
  819. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  820. Gerhard Schöny: then this, uh, will be considered as carbon neutral energy into input into your DAC system, which will increase the net removal
  821. Gerhard Schöny: uh, rate from from your system. And, uh, so this is great. So, this framework is around, also the
  822. Gerhard Schöny: ReFuelEU, uh, Aviation Act, right,
  823. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  824. Gerhard Schöny: uh, also gives a a great pull, uh, effect, because that there's
  825. Gerhard Schöny: a market, right, that is going to be, uh, around where we have a need for for sustainable carbon. And also what And I think this is really required, some some sort of catalytic mechanisms, like public procurement,
  826. Gerhard Schöny: um,
  827. Gerhard Schöny: measures. I think in Germany, they were announcing something like this. In Denmark, they have it. And also there's a European Buyers Club that is being discussed, who is, you know, cuz you
  828. Gerhard Schöny: first
  829. Gerhard Schöny: projects, it's it's really about risk mitigation, and, financially, it's really hard to mitigate that, really, unless you have
  830. Daniel Schaub: Yeah.
  831. Gerhard Schöny: equity financing in the back or if you have fundings or
  832. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  833. Gerhard Schöny: public procurement programs, for example. So, I think this will be essential, and where we also move a lot forward is on the
  834. Gerhard Schöny: on the storage side. I mean, we have Northern Lights now being in operation, I think in Denmark, and and the Netherlands, there are storage projects being developed.
  835. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, for for for Austria, for example, this is, I mean, nice, but it's still far away. So, of course, CO2 transport infrastructure, so everything around that also needs kind of
  836. Gerhard Schöny: be pushed. But, in general, there's a lot of things going on in Europe, and I think if we now really take the chance to see all the challenges that are popping up,
  837. Gerhard Schöny: uh, around us,
  838. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  839. Gerhard Schöny: if we if we take this this as a chance to really,
  840. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  841. Gerhard Schöny: go for for scaling this kind of technologies
  842. Gerhard Schöny: in Europe, then we can we can be very successful with these kind of, uh, of of of things also export-wise, I think, in the future.
  843. Rahul Mishra: You have the institutional investor,
  844. Rahul Mishra: uh, already on board, but what is the hardest slide that you might have to, uh, go through when
  845. Rahul Mishra: if you are if you're in touch with other institutional investor as well, to make them,
  846. Rahul Mishra: uh, understand,
  847. Rahul Mishra: uh, if it's, uh, that it's a bankable project?
  848. Gerhard Schöny: We really try to be,
  849. Gerhard Schöny: um,
  850. Gerhard Schöny: stick to what we know and what we can when we when we present anything to to also to our clients, right? Cuz I think, uh, so many promises,
  851. Gerhard Schöny: uh, especially around DAC, been given in the past
  852. Gerhard Schöny: where we say, "Okay, we have a good product. We have a good process, and
  853. Gerhard Schöny: we we should not dare to to be too over-optimistic also when it comes to what are the projected costs, etc."
  854. Gerhard Schöny: Um, and there, this is then really the question. So, is there a business case ultimately? And, uh, I think,
  855. Gerhard Schöny: uh, if you look at the numbers that we have, the techno-economic assessments, the early ones that we we did, and the
  856. Gerhard Schöny: discussions we had with project developers,
  857. Gerhard Schöny: not so much in Europe, but outside of Europe,
  858. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  859. Gerhard Schöny: that want to produce e-fuels, for example,
  860. Gerhard Schöny: I mean, they have a business case when they when we deploy our DAC machines to them, that would fly for them, right?
  861. Gerhard Schöny: In Europe, I think,
  862. Gerhard Schöny: uh, yeah, it again, buyers clubs and, and, and maybe some public procurement pro- programs,
  863. Gerhard Schöny: something like this, maybe some investment subsidies for for very early demonstration projects
  864. Gerhard Schöny: could help to to really
  865. Gerhard Schöny: bring the risks down of being bankable
  866. Gerhard Schöny: uh, a- a- and then really,
  867. Gerhard Schöny: you know, kick kick-start this this markets.
  868. Daniel Schaub: And how do you see
  869. Daniel Schaub: like being in the future, 2030,
  870. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  871. Daniel Schaub: ecosystem for carbon in general?
  872. Daniel Schaub: How do you see it and which,
  873. Daniel Schaub: like, uh, policy framework would you promote to to foster this technology?
  874. Gerhard Schöny: Could be a whole podcast. I mean, I'm not an expert there.
  875. Daniel Schaub: We can do another. But just
  876. Daniel Schaub: short answer.
  877. Gerhard Schöny: Short, yeah.
  878. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, I think if you look at the ETS, for example, the compliance market, it has been
  879. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  880. Gerhard Schöny: very successful, right? So, I think
  881. Gerhard Schöny: I'm not sure if if that if all the emission reductions we see in Europe really
  882. Gerhard Schöny: can exactly be, you know,
  883. Gerhard Schöny: related to the ETS alone, but, uh,
  884. Gerhard Schöny: but there have been substantial re- reductions being,
  885. Gerhard Schöny: you know, uh, catalysed by by this system. So, compliance markets seem to work, and, and why shouldn't it work for for for CDR as well?
  886. Daniel Schaub: So, ETS is emission trade
  887. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, exactly, so the Emission Trading System, uh, that we have here in Europe.
  888. Gerhard Schöny: I mean, this makes it bankable, because it's there's really a demand then, right? And,
  889. Gerhard Schöny: um,
  890. Gerhard Schöny: how to structure it, and and and, etc., and and there are discussions, actually,
  891. Gerhard Schöny: if and and how we can incorporate CDR also into this market, right, in order to have a compliance market for this.
  892. Gerhard Schöny: Ahem.
  893. Gerhard Schöny: And, cuz the VCM, so the voluntary carbon market that is around,
  894. Gerhard Schöny: if you look at it, it's still dominantly,
  895. Gerhard Schöny: I mean, there's one single buyer dominating, and that is Microsoft. I think last year, it was again something 70, 80%, if I'm not mistaken,
  896. Daniel Schaub: Wow.
  897. Gerhard Schöny: of all the credits that have been bought have been, uh, or credits or, uh, pre-purchase,
  898. Gerhard Schöny: uh, orders, uh, or so, have been bought by by Microsoft. And,
  899. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  900. Gerhard Schöny: there are new buyers coming in to the game, but, uh, I mean, this can catalyse early projects.
  901. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  902. Gerhard Schöny: So, if you sell it at high prices, that that can help a lot, and this is also what I think what those big companies want to drive,
  903. Gerhard Schöny: that, you know, the projects can can be realized economically,
  904. Gerhard Schöny: the very first ones, but then it needs to go, mo- most likely, into a more compliance market.
  905. Rahul Mishra: But, in general, what do you think about the carbon market? You, you, you touched upon briefly,
  906. Rahul Mishra: uh, currently,
  907. Rahul Mishra: um,
  908. Rahul Mishra: it's the carbon credits and the carbon market. So, you you think it's, uh, evolving in a in a good way within Europe?
  909. Gerhard Schöny: The most recent, uh, things that I've heard,
  910. Rahul Mishra: And also what
  911. Gerhard Schöny: and also
  912. Rahul Mishra: and the role of, uh, DAC in in this whole, uh, ecosystem?
  913. Gerhard Schöny: Okay. So, in the ETS market, it doesn't have a role currently, but the the voluntary carbon market, if if you look at this, you also see some some consolidation going on. So,
  914. Gerhard Schöny: I think early on, there were like the market prices were very high, so
  915. Gerhard Schöny: uh the first time I looked at at CDR.fyi, I think it was more like on
  916. Gerhard Schöny: uh 700-ish or so, uh, dollars per per tonne,
  917. Gerhard Schöny: where the the average DAC,
  918. Gerhard Schöny: uh,
  919. Gerhard Schöny: uh, tonne of carbon
  920. Gerhard Schöny: was was sold. And, uh, and now, I think it's moving more towards the 400 range. And 2030, I think it's still expected to be, the best buyers will be like somewhere in
  921. Gerhard Schöny: €350 per tonne or so,
  922. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  923. Gerhard Schöny: which is, for us, still, uh, like in a range where we say, "Okay,
  924. Gerhard Schöny: even the early projects could be could make a lot of sense from an economic perspective." Ultimately, everyone thinks that
  925. Gerhard Schöny: we can only bear credits to be as expensive as, I don't know,
  926. Gerhard Schöny: €100 a tonne or so, for example, when it comes to CDR credits.
  927. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  928. Gerhard Schöny: And on the long line, I 2050, I I think it's not impossible, but who knows, yeah?
  929. Daniel Schaub: Yeah.
  930. Gerhard Schöny: But certainly So, again, we we want to stay realistic and conservative with with the promises we make.
  931. Rahul Mishra: Mhm.
  932. Gerhard Schöny: And, and for 2030, our our approach is really or our goal is to have our first commercial projects
  933. Gerhard Schöny: develop CO2 capture costs at at around €250 per tonne.
  934. Rahul Mishra: Amazing. Um, I think it's been, uh, very
  935. Rahul Mishra: insightful,
  936. Rahul Mishra: but there are so many topics that we want to go, uh, further and make, like, another podcast with you, but, uh, coming to the the the last,
  937. Rahul Mishra: uh, round, as we call it, a quick fire round.
  938. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  939. Rahul Mishra: Um,
  940. Rahul Mishra: it this is a this is a technology which requires money, but let's say, hypothetically, you have €1 billion,
  941. Rahul Mishra: haha, what would you, uh, put that into to,
  942. Rahul Mishra: uh, accelerate energy transition?
  943. Gerhard Schöny: In In general, or for DAC?
  944. Rahul Mishra: Yeah, in in general, or if for DAC, yeah, haha.
  945. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  946. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, for DAC, I I I think it would be, uh,
  947. Gerhard Schöny: I I would say, I mean, in order to have something being bankable, you need to have a a reference project, so. And this comes with a lot of risk, so I would kind of de-risk, financially, such a project to have the reference project being dev- delivered.
  948. Daniel Schaub: What would you say that is the more persistent myth
  949. Daniel Schaub: in carbon capture?
  950. Gerhard Schöny: What I always get is the question, "Why don't you capture it from a from a flue gas?
  951. Gerhard Schöny: Why do you capture CO2 from the air?" And this is kind of
  952. Gerhard Schöny: that's that's like
  953. Gerhard Schöny: in in Austria, we say that's like comparing Äpfel mit Birnen. So, so some something that is not really the same. It looks the same because it's CO2, but it's not the same, right?
  954. Gerhard Schöny: It's like if you look at the if you think of a bathtub and you fill it up with water, so the the edge,
  955. Gerhard Schöny: uh, at the top of the bathtub is really what we can allow to have carbon inside our atmosphere.
  956. Gerhard Schöny: And what carbon capture does, is really, uh, it chokes a bit the amount of water that goes in. So, it limits the amount of water that still goes in,
  957. Gerhard Schöny: but it it's still, right, increases the level. So, you need something to to pull it out again.
  958. Daniel Schaub: Exactly.
  959. Gerhard Schöny: And this is what DAC is doing, right? We pull out the water, we pull out the CO2 again.
  960. Gerhard Schöny: So, we we need also technical solutions for that. Nature-based solutions are not, uh, enough. So, th- this is really
  961. Daniel Schaub: It's all together, at the end.
  962. Gerhard Schöny: All together ultimately, yeah. But, uh,
  963. Gerhard Schöny: the confusion is a bit different.
  964. Daniel Schaub: Yeah. Why from the air? Okay.
  965. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah. And it Of course, it's a it's it's a bit of
  966. Gerhard Schöny: more of an effort to
  967. Gerhard Schöny: to capture it from a diluted
  968. Gerhard Schöny: airstream than from from a concentrated stream, but energy-wise, we we were not far away from from what
  969. Gerhard Schöny: even the the point-source captured
  970. Daniel Schaub: Mhm.
  971. Gerhard Schöny: guys are doing.
  972. Rahul Mishra: It's a question that we ask everyone, but, uh, who have, uh, worked in different ecosystems,
  973. Rahul Mishra: uh, you lived in Gothenburg, and, um, Sweden for,
  974. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  975. Rahul Mishra: hard tech is also, uh, I think it's a It has good ecosystem
  976. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  977. Rahul Mishra: within Europe. From Vienna or from Gothenburg, where were you challenged more, uh, where you think that, uh, it more conducive environment for a hard tech sector?
  978. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah, well, I mean, I that's like 15 years ago or so, or 16 now, um, and I was, like, spending my time on the university. So, I can maybe just comment on the universities, and obviously, there are differences.
  979. Gerhard Schöny: Uh, so the way they
  980. Gerhard Schöny: cooperate also on at the university. I would have wished
  981. Gerhard Schöny: these kind of collaborations with, you know, between different disciplines to be
  982. Gerhard Schöny: more, uh, you know, pronounced also here in in in in or developed here in in Vienna.
  983. Gerhard Schöny: But, uh,
  984. Gerhard Schöny: yeah, also what I what is I saw it
  985. Gerhard Schöny: that that here in Vienna, we also have like a more drive towards,
  986. Gerhard Schöny: uh, the actual application, that it,
  987. Gerhard Schöny: uh, so being more applied in terms of of of what what our researches is, the the outcome is is is,
  988. Gerhard Schöny: uh, that we are talking, targeting. So,
  989. Gerhard Schöny: challenging, I don't know, different environments. I I loved it there. So, Gothenburg is a really nice city.
  990. Gerhard Schöny: I I spent most of the time in winter times there, so I don't recommend that. It's better to be there at summer,
  991. Daniel Schaub: Okay.
  992. Gerhard Schöny: uh, times.
  993. Gerhard Schöny: Um,
  994. Gerhard Schöny: yeah, but
  995. Gerhard Schöny: also Vienna is a very beautiful city.
  996. Daniel Schaub: Yeah, it's beautiful. We are always saying every episode.
  997. Daniel Schaub: Uh,
  998. Daniel Schaub: so.
  999. Rahul Mishra: I was also there in, uh, in Gothenburg in,
  1000. Rahul Mishra: not not exactly summer, but sometime in September, but it was super cool city.
  1001. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm. It's really nice there.
  1002. Daniel Schaub: Okay. So, since you're coming from the academy research,
  1003. Gerhard Schöny: Mhm.
  1004. Daniel Schaub: um,
  1005. Daniel Schaub: which advice would you give to researchers
  1006. Daniel Schaub: in general to
  1007. Daniel Schaub: to be brave enough to start a company out of it?
  1008. Gerhard Schöny: For me, it it felt rather natural, right, because, uh,
  1009. Gerhard Schöny: when I at at when I was spending my times at at university, there was simply not, uh,
  1010. Gerhard Schöny: the the environment there to really do something bigger commercially, right, cuz that's not the purpose of the university. When I was at the company level,
  1011. Gerhard Schöny: it was simply not flexible enough to also bring in, like, all the ideas that I had, all the improvements that I saw in whatever processes I was working on.
  1012. Gerhard Schöny: So, the flexibility was no longer there that I had before in academia, and if you And now in a start-up, you kind of can combine both. So, if if you're interested in in really
  1013. Gerhard Schöny: doing things,
  1014. Gerhard Schöny: it I mean, it it pays off, right, because only in that situation, if you have some people that trust you, of course, and where you get the the money that you need to do that, also, but
  1015. Gerhard Schöny: uh, if if you have that, um, passion, then you also will have not will not have a hard time to to find someone who can back your your your your ambitions, I think. And
  1016. Gerhard Schöny: and then do it, cuz it's especially when you're young, because what what what is there to lose, right?
  1017. Gerhard Schöny: You can only gain so much from from that. And this is also something the spirit when
  1018. Gerhard Schöny: when you talk to our investor and like the people in the US, it's way different to to what what we have here.
  1019. Rahul Mishra: Especially in, in in
  1020. Gerhard Schöny: It's growing.
  1021. Rahul Mishra: in Austria, and also in Europe, uh, what's there to lose, because people also get unemployment money.
  1022. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  1023. Daniel Schaub: Haha.
  1024. Gerhard Schöny: Yes, actually. Yes.
  1025. Daniel Schaub: That's right.
  1026. Gerhard Schöny: That's It's really So, there's nothing to lose. It's When you're young, right? I mean, for me, it was a bit, you know, I had I had my my my kids and, and, and, you know, some some interest rates to be paid for my apartment and everything.
  1027. Gerhard Schöny: So, but when you're
  1028. Gerhard Schöny: young and you just graduated, and you don't have that, then shoot for it, cuz
  1029. Gerhard Schöny: you will learn so much. I mean, I also learned a lot in in the industries, in the companies I was working on. But if you really have the idea and you really want to to push it to a certain level,
  1030. Gerhard Schöny: the the best thing you can do is you you you found your own company, and then try it.
  1031. Daniel Schaub: Yeah. Nice.
  1032. Daniel Schaub: Yeah.
  1033. Daniel Schaub: Uh, thank you, Gerhard. Uh, now I know more about direct air capture. So, thank you very much, um, for sure. We're going to hear from you, uh, soon.
  1034. Gerhard Schöny: Haha.
  1035. Daniel Schaub: You're going to be part of our forum in June, 2nd and 3rd of June.
  1036. Daniel Schaub: Uh,
  1037. Daniel Schaub: yeah, it's a topic that it's ongoing.
  1038. Daniel Schaub: We are happy to connect you
  1039. Daniel Schaub: also with more people in the ecosystem that we that they could use
  1040. Daniel Schaub: your CO2,
  1041. Gerhard Schöny: Yeah.
  1042. Daniel Schaub: for example.
  1043. Daniel Schaub: Uh, so yeah, very grateful for having you.
  1044. Gerhard Schöny: Thank you again for, for having.
  1045. Rahul Mishra: Thank you, Gerhard.
  1046. Gerhard Schöny: It was a pleasure. Thank you very much.
  1047. Daniel Schaub: Yeah, and thanks to the community for watching the episode until the end. And, uh, keep tuned for a new interview.
  1048. Daniel Schaub: Ciao, ciao, ciao.
  1049. Gerhard Schöny: Bye.