CCS for Waste-to-Energy Plants: From Costs to Decision Logic

CCS is becoming more concrete. Alongside cement plants, waste-to-energy plants are among the most relevant use cases: they have significant, hard-to-avoid emissions, may be included in the EU ETS in the future, and contain a biogenic CO₂ share that could open up CDR opportunities.

Still, project development remains difficult. Mainly because an investment in CCS is often hard to justify economically under today’s conditions.

On the cost side are CO₂ abatement costs: What does it cost to capture, condition, transport, and permanently store one tonne of CO₂?

On the value side are the benefits of CO₂ reduction: avoided ETS costs for fossil emissions and potential revenues from certificates for the permanent removal of biogenic emissions.

Both sides are uncertain. Energy prices, heat integration, transport and storage costs, ETS prices, CDR value, subsidies, regulation, and timing can all shift the business case significantly.

Waste-to-energy plants are a useful example of why CCS cannot be decided based on a single cost figure. It requires a structured decision logic.

What really drives the cost and value range

According to a study by Agora Industry and the Öko-Institut, expected CCS costs in Europe are around EUR 150–300/t CO₂. This range is important. But it does not explain enough.

The first step is to break down the overall economics. The drivers of CO₂ abatement costs need to be compared with potential CO₂ benefits, especially avoided ETS costs and potential revenues from biogenic CO₂ or CDR.

Illustrative cost-benefit waterfall for an MVA-CCS application. The full MAC (Marginal Abatement Costs = CO₂ abatement costs) is calculated by taking the sum of the cost components and subtracting any potential CO₂ benefits.

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Basis for the illustrative calculation

The assumptions and ranges are based on publicly available sources and own screening assumptions. The calculation is not a site-specific feasibility study. It is intended to illustrate the key levers. For the capture unit, a heat demand of 0.8–1.2 MWh/t CO₂ is assumed. In one variant, around 50% of annual heat demand is assumed to be covered by seasonally available heat. The remaining 50% is assumed to be supplied via a heat pump. The illustrative site is located in Austria. As a storage pathway, a future Austrian onshore storage option is assumed. This is a scenario assumption, not a statement about current regulatory availability.

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Behind these assumptions are major uncertainties. What matters is not only the base case, but which assumptions actually move the business case.

Illustrative sensitivity analysis of net abatement costs. The largest lever is transport and storage, followed by CO₂ benefits from ETS avoidance and potential CDR value.

In this example, the largest lever is transport and storage. This mainly reflects the question of whether a regional or onshore storage pathway becomes available - or whether CO₂ needs to be transported over longer distances to offshore storage sites.

The second major lever is CO₂ benefits: avoided ETS costs for fossil emissions and potential revenues from CDR certificates for biogenic CO₂. This is also highly uncertain. ETS prices, regulatory inclusion, and the future CDR market model can shift the business case significantly.

CAPEX, energy costs, and other OPEX also matter. But in this example, they are less dominant.

The sensitivity analysis shows that economics do not depend only on the capture plant. They depend heavily on infrastructure, regulation, CO₂ value logic, and site assumptions.

Beyond these external uncertainties, there are two additional dimensions: site-specific factors and design decisions. This is where the real room for action emerges.

Site-specific factors include available waste heat, existing power and district heating integration, opportunity costs, proximity to ports, hubs, pipelines or storage sites, available space, and operating profile.

Design decisions define the strategic room for manoeuvre: full-scale capture or partial stream, fossil scope or total CO₂ stream, modular plant or large one-off investment, seasonal operation, capture-ready preparation, later expansion to biogenic CO₂ storage, and partner or hub models.

This is often where the biggest methodological lever lies: avoiding a premature narrowing of the solution space.

If the solution space is narrowed too early, CCS quickly becomes an all-or-nothing investment: full-scale build-out or wait. Invest or do nothing.

A better approach is to deliberately keep the solution space open. Which variants are technically conceivable? Which are currently recognised under regulation? Which could become relevant as future options? And which assumptions would need to change for an option to become an investment-ready pathway?

This shifts CCS from a single large project to a portfolio of real options.

The key levers: heat, logistics, and CO₂ value

Three levers make this logic particularly tangible: heat, logistics, and CO₂ value.

Heat: CO₂ capture quickly becomes an energy question

For amine-based CO₂ capture in waste-to-energy applications, a practical working range is often around 0.8–1.2 MWh of heat per tonne of CO₂.

For a plant capturing 100,000 t CO₂ per year, this means:

80–120 GWh of heat demand per year.

This is not a side assumption. It is a major intervention in the site’s energy logic.

The question is therefore not only: Which capture technology is suitable?

It is also: Which heat source is realistic, cost-robust, permitting-compatible, and compatible with existing power and district heating logic?

Logistics: a coastal site is not an inland site

A coastal or hub-adjacent site has a very different starting point than a Central European inland site without direct access to CO₂ infrastructure.

For some sites, ship transport to a CO₂ hub may be a realistic pathway. Others need to assess whether rail, pipeline, truck transport, regional hubs, or later infrastructure connections are viable.

Transport is therefore not just a cost item. It is a sequencing risk.

Capture needs transport. Transport needs storage. Storage needs volume. And all three need contracts, permitting, and timing.

External studies show how significant this lever is. Agora Industry and the Öko-Institut estimate transport and storage costs of around EUR 105–260/t CO₂, depending on the transport chain. For inland sites, this is critical. The difference between a regional storage pathway, pipeline, rail, shipping, or offshore export can shift the business case more than some technical detail assumptions.

That is why a site should not only be assessed technically. It should also be assessed as an infrastructure and real-options question: Which storage and logistics pathways need to be prepared today, even if the final investment has not yet been decided?

CO₂ value: ETS and CDR follow different logics

Waste-to-energy plants add another layer of complexity: their CO₂ stream typically contains both fossil and biogenic shares.

The fossil share is mainly relevant for ETS avoidance. The biogenic share could create CDR value if it is permanently stored and if certification and market models become viable.

This creates opportunities. But it also increases uncertainty.

In practice, this remains a critical point: biogenic CO₂ value is strategically relevant, but it is not automatically a bankable revenue model.

For the decision logic, this means:

ETS can become part of the base case.CDR should initially be treated as upside, scenario, or real option.The biogenic share is strategically relevant, but not automatically bankable.

Real options instead of all-or-nothing

Many CCS discussions become binary too early: invest or wait, full-scale build-out or nothing, CCS yes or no.

That is too narrow.

Under uncertainty, value can come from structuring several real options. Not every option is immediately investment-ready. Not every option is fully recognised under current regulation. But every option helps to better understand the decision space.

For waste-to-energy CCS, such options could include:

• planning ongoing plant expansions in a capture-ready way

• preparing long-lead-time pre-investments without triggering the full CCS investment

• testing modular build-out stages, partial streams, or seasonal operating models

• keeping biogenic CO₂ value open as a later upside

• exploring transport, hub, and storage options early

Such variants do not replace a final investment decision. They prepare it. They show which assumptions really shift the case: heat availability, fossil share, ETS logic, CDR value, utilisation, CAPEX staging, and later expandability.

What a good decision framework should do

If an investment decision is not yet mature, that does not mean there is nothing to do.

The first step is to open the solution space properly. What is truly already decided? What is merely being treated as decided? And where is there still real room for design?

From that, variants emerge. And from variants, options emerge.

A good decision framework clarifies three questions:

• What is already decided - and what is still genuine solution space? 

• Which pathways should be actively prepared without committing today? 

• Which assumptions move the business case enough to justify further analysis? 

The focus is not to immediately find the one right solution. The focus is to deliberately create and preserve options.

This turns uncertainty into a structured options pathway rather than standstill.

Conclusion: Staying decision-ready

CCS remains complex. ETS rules, CDR markets, support mechanisms, storage access, and energy prices will continue to evolve.

That is exactly why waiting for the perfect cost figure is not enough.

The key question is:

Which assumptions move the business case - and which options should be prepared today?

For waste-to-energy plants, this means that CCS does not need to be investment-ready everywhere immediately. But the option space should be structured: with clear value drivers, realistic scenarios, and defined decision points.

The same logic applies beyond waste-to-energy. In cement, steel, pulp and paper, and energy companies, the core challenge is rarely technology alone. It is about preparing robust decisions under uncertainty.

How do companies navigate this jungle of costs, regulation, infrastructure, and market assumptions? And which methods help translate uncertainty into concrete options for action?

I would be happy to discuss.