Prof Dawid Hanak, CEng · Independent TEA and LCA
Cost and carbon numbers that count as evidence, not claims.
I’m an engineer and professor who has worked on carbon capture since 2012. I help GreenTech and carbon removal founders check their techno-economic and life-cycle numbers before an investor, buyer or grant assessor does.
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- Carbon capture research since 2012
- 4,860 citations, h-index 39
- Top 2% most-cited in energy, 2022–2024
- Chartered Engineer, MIMechE, MEI
- Work delivered for IEAGHG, Innovate UK, PolyCapture, The Catalyst Group
Sound familiar?
You have the numbers. Nobody independent has checked them yet.
You have a cost model, a carbon footprint and some pilot data. Your team built them, and they may well be right. But anyone deciding whether to fund you or buy from you will treat them as claims until someone without a stake in the answer has tested them.
That test usually happens in diligence, on their timetable. It’s the worst moment to find that a pilot yield doesn’t hold at commercial scale, or that your TEA and your LCA draw the system boundary in different places.
The usual result is a delayed decision, or a model rebuilt in a hurry halfway through due diligence.
The TEA map
Where a reviewer looks first.
Every TEA passes through the same 5 stages. Each has a mistake a reviewer checks for before anything else.
Boundary
Where it breaksThe fence is drawn round the capture unit only.
What holds upOne boundary the reviewer agrees with, across the deck, the model and the LCA.
Mass and energy balance
Where it breaksThe reference plant’s numbers are taken on trust.
What holds upA balance someone has rebuilt, and that closes.
Capex
Where it breaksA first plant is priced like the Nth.
What holds upCapex priced for the first plant, with contingency matched to the evidence.
Economic KPIs
Where it breaksThe cost is quoted per the wrong tonne.
What holds upCost per net tonne, stated on the basis a buyer will use.
Uncertainty
Where it breaksOne number where the estimate is a range.
What holds upA range with its drivers named, and the downside case.
What I do
I test whether your cost and carbon numbers will hold up, and tell you plainly.
Engineering, economics and environmental integrity, checked on the same basis. That’s the 3E Framework.
Most founders start here
Review the model you have
Every assumption that carries weight goes into one register, tagged by where it came from. Then I test the few that decide your headline numbers. Best when a raise or an offtake deal is close.
Build
Build the numbers independently
A scale-up and TEA assessment, or an LCA and carbon integrity assessment, built by someone with no technology to sell. For when you need the economics or the carbon numbers from the ground up.
Learn
Learn to do it yourself
Training for founders, their teams, and researchers heading towards a spin-out, who want to build their own TEA and defend it. A small-group cohort is planned for early 2027.
Why independent matters
I don’t design, build or sell the plant. There’s no follow-on contract for me to win.
The only thing I have riding on the work is that the answer holds up when someone else checks it. If your case isn’t ready, it’s better to hear that from me than from an investor.
Born at 353 ppm
Hi, I’m Dawid
An engineer who asks whether it stacks up.
My work asks one question of carbon capture, direct air capture, hydrogen and CO2 utilisation: does it stack up once the engineering, the economics and the life-cycle carbon are counted on the same basis?
I’m Professor of Decarbonisation of Industrial Clusters at the Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre (NZIIC), Teesside University, after 7.5 years as Associate Professor at Cranfield.
“Dawid has successfully undertaken 3 projects for us with 2 more in preparation now. We also will retain Dawid as an independent reviewer for third party tests being carried out.”
Kenneth Flockhart, Changeover Technologies
Latest writing
The number the press release leaves out.
Why a tight cost range makes your TEA harder to believe
A narrow range on an unbuilt plant reads as overconfidence. What a reviewer reads into it, and what a believable range looks like.
How to align engineering, economic and environmental metrics to justify your business case
Each can be right on its own and the case can still fall apart where they meet.
CO2 transport and storage: the real CCUS bottleneck
Capture gets the headlines. The pipe and the store decide whether a project goes ahead.
The newsletter
The questions your investors will ask, answered first.
The GreenTech Business Case is for founders, CEOs and CTOs with a raise, an offtake agreement or a scale-up decision ahead. It has 14,700+ subscribers on LinkedIn.
The GreenTech Business Case
Each edition takes a single question a funder, buyer or board will put to you, and works through what a defensible answer looks like. Free, by email.