How does the cost of air-capture compare to the cost of stationary capture?
The dominant cost of the system is not in the collector but in the sorbent recovery unit where the CO2 is released from the sorbent. It has been experimentally established and is in accordance with thermodynamics that the additional sorbent strength required to capture CO2 from air rather than from the more concentrated flue gas exhaust is small. Indeed practical sorbents strong enough to work in flue stacks of power plant are usually also strong enough to work with air. Since sorbent recovery is the dominant cost for both technologies, the costs for air-capture and flue gas stack stationary capture are very similar.
