Carbon Capture Usage and Storage

There have been several conversations and questions surrounding the topic of Carbon Capture Usage & Storage (CCUS). Many of them are skeptical about the viability of CCUS, thereby generating doubts across different industries regarding the role of CCUS in addressing the enormous challenge of carbon emissions reduction. The common arguments are that: prevailing technologies are expensive and/or do not work optimally; taxpayers should not fund unproven technologies with dubious results; investments in renewables are preferable to CCUS; such a technology protects the status quo of hydrocarbon producers; and so on.

This paper’s intent is not just to objectively explore this skepticism, but also to understand the actual market situation of CCUS in 2022, in order to provide answers to concerned industries and governments. These answers pertain to the potential of CCUS as part of our arsenal of carbon offset solutions; to the validation of governments’ support of CCUS developments; and to the eventual long-term viability of the CCUS technology and business model.

Our study concludes that CCUS can be instrumental in compensating residual CO₂ emissions that are hard to abate in Energy-Intensive Industries, Power Generation and Refined Hydrocarbons. Furthermore, based on all types of CCUS projects in 2022, we believe that we are off to a running start.

Recently, revisions in governments’ policies are enabling more-effective Public-Private Partnerships, which provides strong potential for CCUS industry to gain momentum, while ensuring investment stability. We increasingly observe public signals of confidence and collaboration from industry leaders, governments and investors with regards to CCUS - which we believe will gradually drive public acceptance of this technology.

We are still on the path of cost reduction, but we expect to observe further technology innovations, positive effects of a projects’ scale up and efficiencies, as well as the entrance of tier-1 players into this landscape. As CCUS expands in hubs to leverage CO₂ emission clusters and combined expertise, we propose Public-Private Partnerships to focus on mega clusters as a solution to bridge the 0,6Gt CO₂ gap in carbon capture capacity by 2030.