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Carbon Capture and Sequestration

A carbon capture and sequestration/storage (CCS) system is designed to remove CO₂ at the source of emission, such as a coal or natural gas plant, or from the environment. The CO₂ can be stored in a sealed underground chamber or used for another purpose. As of July 2024, there are 50 CCS projects in the world with a collection capture capacity of 51 million tons of CO₂ per year. An additional 365 million tons of capacity where in various stages of planning and development 1. This is up from 40 million tons per year as of 2018 2.

For industrial heat and process emissions from major commodities, CCS may be the only economically viable tool to reduce emissions by more than 30% 3.

Cost

We estimate the following costs of carbon capture from various industrial sources.

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Costs from industrial sources are given by Folger 4 and the IEA (5 and 6). Costs from coal power are estimated by Gillingham and Stock 7, Hardisty et al. 8, Hu and Zhai 9, and Rubin et al. 10. Costs from natural gas are estimated by Budinis et al. 11 and Rubin et al. 10. Fasihi et al. 12 estimate the cost from direct air capture. The IPCC 13 estimates the cost from bioenergy and carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS).

Seawater may also be a promising venue for extracting carbon dioxide 14, though reliable potential costs estimates are limited. Recent analysis suggests that the CO₂ abatement cost of synthetic diesel from seawater may range from $373 to $717 per ton 15.

A major determinant in the monetary and energy costs of CO₂ capture is concentration, with lower costs from higher concentrations. The following are estimates of primary energy requirements to capture a ton of CO₂ from various sources.

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Sources: Malins 16 and von der Assen et al. 17, with primary energy conversion given by the Building Energy Codes Program 18.

Sources of Carbon

While industrial sources of carbon tend to be cheaper than diffuse sources such as direct air capture, only limited amounts of them are available, and fossil fuel-based sources in particular will hopefully be phased out eventually. Following are estimates of how much carbon will be available at midcentury from non-fossil sources.

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Source: IRENA and Methanol Institute 19.

Usage

Most captured CO₂ today is used for enhanced oil recovery, with most of the remainder stored geologically.

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Destination of captured CO2 as of 2018. Source: Global CCS Institute 2. As of 2023, roughly the same percentage of captured CO2--79%--was used for enhanced oil recovery, though the majority of projects planned to 2030 as of 2023 were for dedicated storage 20.

A barrel of oil releases about 500 kg of CO₂, and if CO₂ enhanced oil recovery is used, about 300-600 kg CO₂ are injected into the well 21.

For the industrial CO2 market more broadly, the dominant uses are urea for fertilizer and enhanced oil recovery. The world market of 230 million tons of industrial CO2 is less than 1% of world emissions of about 40 billion tons annually as of 2022.

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Source: IEA 22.

Potential future uses of captured CO₂ include methanol, hydrocarbons, methane, mineralization into building materials, working fluids for coal and geothermal power plants, fertilizing plant growth in greenhouses 23, feedstock for the chemical industry, and several niche industrial uses 24, 25.

If CO₂ is captured from fossil fuels or cement, and then used to produce synthetic fuels, the overall process may have lower emissions than the conventional alternative, but it is not a true low-carbon process. Rather, in this scenario, each molecule of CO₂ is emitted over two processes rather than one.

Problem:
CO₂ Emissions From Fossil Fuels
Solution:
Develop New Uses for Captured CO₂

Enhanced Oil Recovery

Enhanced oil recovery, also known as enhanced oil extraction or tertiary recovery, is a means of injecting heat, chemicals, or a high pressure gas, often carbon dioxide, into an oil well to increase production. Applied after primary (without additional injection) and secondary (water flooding), EOR works by mixing the injected fluid with the oil, thereby increasing the ease of recovery 26. The sources of injection for EOR are estimated as follows.

World EOR projects by type, as of 2017. Percentages do not add to 100% due to rounding. Source: International Energy Agency 27.

As of 2019, it was estimated that 70% of CO2 for EOR was sourced from natural geologic deposits. Such EOR provides no carbon sequestration benefit 28. When CO2 is captured from an industrial source, it is important to credit the carbon savings to either the source of capture, or to the oil well, but not to both 28.

As of 2018, about 2% of oil was produced via EOR, and lower prices and competition with other emerging production technologies had diminished interest in EOR 29. The International Energy Agency has estimated that EOR has the potential to sequester 60-240 billion tons of CO2 from 2015 to 2050, or 1.7 to 6.9 billion tons per year over that period 30. If the source of CO2 is from the atmosphere or from another industrial process, then each captured ton of CO2 used for EOR will reduce emissions on net by 0.63 to 0.79 tons, taking into account leakage and the effect of increased oil consumption overall 30.

The leakage rate of carbon dioxide injected into oil wells has been estimated at less than 1% over 1000 years 26, but this requires that the well is properly sealed after production has ceased 31. Induced seismicity has been observed as a result of EOR, though this can be managed by controlling the rate of injection 32.

Direct Air Capture

Direct air capture (DAC) refers to a system that captures and removes carbon dioxide from the ambient atmosphere, rather than a concentrated industrial waste stream. The International Energy envisions that DAC will remove 980 million tons of CO2 per year by 2050, compared to just 0.01 million tons per year as of 2022 33. The two leading technologies are liquid solvent DAC (L-DAC) and solid sorbent DAC (S-DAC). Following are estimates of the resources required for 1 billion tons of DAC per year, about 2.5% of current emissions.

Resource1 billion tons L-DAC1 billion tons S-DACPresent annual consumption
Land Use400 km²1200-1700 km²149 million km² (Earth's land area)
Water50 billion tons0.2-2 billion tons4600 billion tons
Energy5.5-8.8 exajoules7.2-9.5 EJ600 EJ
Life cycle greenhouse gas emissions100-400 million tons CO₂30-91 million tons40 billion tons
CostUp to $340 billionUp to $540 billionWorld GDP about $106 trillion in 2023

Cost estimates are based on current values and would almost certainly decrease with a large buildout. The IEA projects an eventual cost of less than $100/ton for CO2 removal by DAC. Land use estimates are for the DAC facilities only, and not the energy infrastructure required to fuel them. Source: IEA 33.

S-DAC can operate with lower temperature heat, enabling it to use geothermal or solar thermal energy. L-DAC requires high temperature heat.

If an L-DAC system had to desalinate its own water usage, it would add $3.50 - $9.50/ton CO₂ to the cost of carbon removal 33. It is possible to run a DAC device intermittently on renewable electricity as a load balancing strategy, but this would further raise the cost 33.

Geological Storage

It is estimated that the world could store 8,000 to 55,000 billion tons of CO2, the equivalent of 200-1275 years of emissions at current rates 33. In the United States, it is estimated that over half of onshore storage could be developed at less than $10/ton CO2, while more than half of offshore storage could be developed at less than $35/ton 33. Carbon leakage is estimated at less than 0.01% per year, slow enough for CCS to be secure as a mitigation solution 34.

Estimates vary; one holds that the world's technical storage capacity is 16 billion tons of CO2 per year, a bit less than half of current emissions 35.

Environmental and Safety Issues

Most modeled scenarios to mitigate the risk of climate change include a role for negative emissions technologies such as direct air capture 36, but there is a fear that the possibility of expanded use of carbon capture or direct air capture will create a "moral hazard" 37, whereby there is a reduction of public will for other forms of mitigation. Studies of public opinion 38 have found a minimal effect of understanding of carbon removal on public will for other mitigation solutions. The moral hazard argument is also based on a false understanding of climate policy as a binary, exclusive choice between removal and mitigation 39.

Carbon dioxide is mostly safe as an industrial chemical, though above its critical point of about 31°C and a pressure of nearly 73 atmospheres, CO2 can be explosive if pressure is suddenly lost. The risks of carbon sequestration facilities are similar to those of other industrial facilities, and the risks of CO2 pipeline transport are similar to those of other pipelines 40. See our analysis of CO2 and other pipelines for more information.

References

  1. Global CCS Institute. "Global Status of CCS 2024". July 2024. ↩

  2. Global CCS Institute. "The Global Status of CCS". 2018. ↩ ↩2

  3. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, International Energy Agency. "CCS 2014: What lies in store for CCS?". 2014. ↩

  4. Folger, P. "Carbon Capture: A Technology Assessment". Congressional Research Service. July 2010. ↩

  5. International Energy Agency. "Technology Roadmap - Carbon Capture and Storage, 2013 Edition". ↩

  6. International Energy Agency. "Transforming Industry through CCUS". May 2019. ↩

  7. Gillingham, K., Stock, J. "The Cost of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions". Journal of Economic Perspectives 32(4), pp. 53-72. November 2018. ↩

  8. Hardisty, P., Sivapalan, M., Brooks, P. "The Environmental and Economic Sustainability of Carbon Capture and Storage". International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 8(5), pp. 1460-1477. May 2011. ↩

  9. Hu. B,. Zhai, H. "The cost of carbon capture and storage for coal-fired power plants in China". International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 65, pp. 23-31. 2017. ↩

  10. Rubin, E., Davison, J., Herzog, H. "The cost of CO₂ capture and storage". International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 40, pp. 378-400. September 2015. ↩ ↩2

  11. Budinis, S., Krevor, S., Mac Dowell, M,. Brandon, N., Hawkes, A. "An assessment of CCS costs, barriers and potential". Energy Strategy Reviews 22, pp. 61-81. November 2018. ↩

  12. Fasihi, M., Efimova, O., Breyer, C. "Techno-economic assessment of CO₂ direct air capture plants". Journal of Cleaner Production 224, pp. 957-980. July 2019. ↩

  13. IPCC. "Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change". [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. 2014. ↩

  14. Willauer, H., Hardy, D., Schultz, K., Williams, F. "The feasibility and current estimated capital costs of producing jet fuel at sea using carbon dioxide and hydrogen". Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy 4. May 2012. ↩

  15. Eisaman M., Rivest, J., Karnitz, S., de Lannoy, C., Jose, A., DeVaul, R., Hannun, K. "Indirect ocean capture of atmospheric CO2: Part II. Understanding the cost of negative emissions". International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 70, pp. 254-261. March 2018. ↩

  16. Malins, C. "What role is there for electrofuel technologies in European transport’s low carbon future?". Cerulogy. November 2017. ↩

  17. von der Assen, N., Müller, L., Steingrube, A., Voll, P., Bardow, A. "Selecting CO₂ Sources for CO2 Utilization by Environmental-Merit-Order Curves". Environmental Science & Technology 50(3), pp. 1093-1101. January 2016. ↩

  18. Building Energy Codes Program. "Prototype Building Models High-rise Apartment". Building Technologies Office, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U. S. Department of Energy. April 2011. ↩

  19. IRENA and Methanol Institute. "Innovation Outlook : Renewable Methanol". International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi. January 2021. ↩

  20. International Energy Agency. "CO2 Transport and Storage". Accessed July 17, 2025. ↩

  21. McGlade, C. "Commentary: Can CO2-EOR really provide carbon-negative oil?". International Energy Agency. April 2019. ↩

  22. International Energy Agency. "Putting CO2 to Use". September 2019. ↩

  23. Bao, J., Lu, W., Zhao, J., Bi, X. "Greenhouses for CO₂ sequestration from atmosphere". Carbon Resources Conversion 1(2), pp. 183-190. August 2018. ↩

  24. International Energy Agency. "Carbon capture, utilisation and storage". Accessed October 1, 2019. ↩

  25. Leung, D., Caramanna, G., Maroto-Valer, M. "An overview of current status of carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies". Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems 39, pp. 426-443. November 2014. ↩

  26. Duda, J. R., Yost, A. B., Long, R. Dehoratiis, G., Ogunsola, O. "Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery". National Energy Technology Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy. March 2010. ↩ ↩2

  27. International Energy Agency. "Number of EOR projects in operation globally, 1971-2017". November 2018. ↩

  28. McGlade, C. "Can CO2-EOR really provide carbon-negative oil?". International Energy Agency. April 2019. ↩ ↩2

  29. McGlade, C., Sondak, G., Han, M. "Whatever happened to enhanced oil recovery?". International Energy Agency. November 2018. ↩

  30. International Energy Agency. "Storing CO2 through Enhanced Oil Recovery". November 2015. ↩ ↩2

  31. Ide, S.T., Friedmann, S.J., Herzog, H.J. "CO2 leakage through existing wells: current technology and regulations". In 8th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (Vol. 1, pp. 19-33). June 2006. ↩

  32. National Petroleum Council. Meeting the Dual Challenge: A Roadmap to At-Scale Deployment of Carbon Capture, Use, and Storage. Chapter 8: CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery. March 2021. ↩

  33. International Energy Agency. "Direct Air Capture: A key technology for net zero". April 2022. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  34. Miocic, J. M., Gilfillan, S. M. V., Frank, N., Schroeder-Ritzrau, A., Burnside, N. M., Haszeldine, R. S. "420,000 year assessment of fault leakage rates shows geological carbon storage is secure". Scientific Reports 9: 769. January 2019. ↩

  35. Zhang, Y., Jackson, C., Krevor, S. "The feasibility of reaching gigatonne scale CO2 storage by mid-century". Nature Communications 15(1): 6913. August 2024. ↩

  36. Xie, W., Aryanpur, V., Deane, P., Daly, H.E. "Negative emissions technologies in energy system models and mitigation scenarios-a systematic review". Applied Energy 380: 125064. February 2025. ↩

  37. Voget-Kleschin, L., Baatz, C., Heyward, C., Van Vuuren, D., Mengis, N. "Reassessing the need for carbon dioxide removal: moral implications of alternative climate target pathways". Global Sustainability 7:e1. January 2024. ↩

  38. Hart, P.S., Campbell-Arvai, V., Wolske, K.S., Raimi, K.T. "Moral hazard or not? The effects of learning about carbon dioxide removal on perceptions of climate mitigation in the United States". Energy Research & Social Science 89: 102656. July 2022. ↩

  39. Jebari, J., Táíwò, O.O., Andrews, T.M., Aquila, V., Beckage, B., Belaia, M., Clifford, M., Fuhrman, J., Keller, D.P., Mach, K.J., Morrow, D.R. "From moral hazard to risk-response feedback". Climate Risk Management 33: 100324. January 2021. ↩

  40. Health and Safety Executive. "Major hazard potential of CCS". Accessed July 17, 2025. ↩