Carbon Capture And Removal

CCS is mostly an expensive failure designed to prolong the lifetime of the #oilandgas industry. Gorgon in Western Australia is the world's largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) project. It was approved on the condition that it would capture 80% of the CO2 it removed from its reservoir on a 5-year rolling average from July 2016. How has it performed since then? ➡️ The project was delayed and operations only started in mid-2019 ➡️ To date it has only captured 44% of the CO2 removed between 2019 and 2024 ➡️ Far from performance improving, it is actually getting worse. In FY2023-24 it only captured 30% of the CO2 removed from the reservoir. And costs have increased, from an initial estimate of $70/tonne of CO2 captured, to over $200/tonne of CO2 captured. Looking at total emissions from the Gorgon project (including Scope 1, 2 and 3), Chevron estimated these at 50 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent a year. In the 5 years since Gorgon CCS started operating it has captured about 10 MtCO2 - reducing Gorgon's total emissions from 250 MtCO2 to 240 MtCO2. That's a mere 4% decrease. And Gorgon is not alone. A review of 13 flagship CCS projects found that only three met their targets. Two of these are in Norway - Sleipner and Snøvit. They have also encountered unexpected geological problems highlighting a key issue: putting something back in the ground is more difficult than extracting it. Ironically, the majority of the CO2 that is captured at CCS projects is used for Enhanced Oil Recovery, meaning it is injected into oil wells to extract more oil, which will lead to more emissions and defeats the object of capturing the CO2 in the first place. Don't be fooled: CCS is not the climate panacea the fossil fuel industry would have you believe. It's mostly a distraction from the climate solutions that actually work. #energy #sustainability #energytransition

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley , have developed a material named COF-999, a fluffy yellow powder capable of capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere with remarkable efficiency. Just under half a pound (approximately 200 grams) of COF-999 can absorb about 44 pounds (20 kilograms) of CO₂ annually, matching the carbon sequestration capacity of a mature tree over the same period. COF-999 is a covalent organic framework (COF) characterized by its porous structure, which provides a large surface area for gas adsorption. The internal surfaces of this material are lined with amines—compounds that effectively bind to CO₂ molecules. When air passes through COF-999, the amines capture CO₂, and the gas can later be released by heating the material to about 140°F (60°C), allowing for repeated use. Notably, COF-999 has demonstrated stability over at least 100 adsorption-desorption cycles without degradation. This innovation holds significant promise for direct air capture (DAC) technologies, which aim to reduce atmospheric CO₂ levels to mitigate climate change. The efficiency and durability of COF-999 could enhance the viability of DAC systems, potentially accelerating efforts to lower greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Source: https://lnkd.in/dgwRRzhe

🚂 CO₂ is CO₂ - until you try to capture it!! Everyone treats carbon capture like a single engineering problem. But in reality, what you’re capturing from completely changes the game. Let’s break it down: 🧪 Flue Gas (Industrial CO₂) • Higher concentration (4–15%) • Hot, dirty, full of SOx/NOx — needs serious pretreatment • Promising for retrofits, tough on materials 🌾 Biogenic CO₂ • Comes from fermentation, biomass, etc. • Fewer impurities, sometimes carbon-negative • Easier to capture, harder to scale economically 🌬️ Atmospheric CO₂ (Direct Air Capture) • Just 0.04% in the air • Requires massive airflow + smart chemistry • Technically heroic. Economically brutal “for now” Different sources need different tech stacks, energy inputs, and infrastructure. That’s why “plug and play” carbon capture barely works in the real world. The winners in this space? They’re not just great at chemistry. They’re great at matching the right approach to the right source. 🧠 What’s your take? Which CO₂ stream do you think is most scalable in the next decade—and why? 👇 Let’s hear it in the comments. #sustainability #netzero #climatechange #climateaction #carboncapture Deependra Singh Shekhawat Hardik Abusariya Kirti Raj Singh Shekhawat Kushal Rathore Monika Wadhawan, PhD www.tracexero.com

This week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) launched a major report on #CCUS policies and business models. It's the most comprehensive piece I've seen so far, and I'm glad to have contributed as one of the reviewers. The report provides a detailed overview of what exists in the policy landscape and what is missing. I warmly recommend to have a look. Some general messages: • CCUS is expected to contribute 8% of emission reductions by 2050 + #carbonremoval from the application of CCUS technologies • More than 400 projects have been announced across the value chain over the last three years, but the deployment has remained relatively flat. The long lead times (median around six years) must be urgently reduced. • The current project pipeline would only deliver a third of what's needed globally by 2030. The policymakers need to create the conditions for the industry to make the projects happen. • New part-chain business models are emerging where separate entities specialise in different parts of the CCUS value chain. • The oil and gas sector continues to play a role, and new specialised players are entering the market. These are chemical and engineering companies providing CO2 capture solutions and infrastructure, shipping companies expanding their portfolio, and new companies focusing exclusively on CCUS. • As a result, old and new players are now establishing joint ventures in a CCUS hub configuration. • New business models also create new project complexities. There is a greater need for coordination across the value chain, mitigation of counter-party risks, allocation of long-term liability, and management of shared, cross-border CO2 transport and storage infrastructure. • Governments can support the deployment of these new models and step in where challenges remain. This, of course, requires the governments to understand better the way the CCUS project development landscape is progressing. Last but not least, a visual that compares the CCS cost and the EU carbon price. There's that evergreen question of what the carbon price should be to incentivise CCS. The right answer is that a strong carbon price is only one of many elements needed. And it's barely touching the CCS applications from diluted CO2 streams today, as seen below. Link to the report in the comments.

Let's agree on something - direct air capture is still a controversial technology, but it's role in transition to net zero is often misunderstood. Although it enables direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere at scale, its costs and energy requirements are still prohibitive. Most DAC technologies face challenges in scaling up and commercialisation. Academics know it. Consultants know it. Industry knows it. With DAC forecasted to account only for less than 3% of our future emission mitigation activity (~1 GtCO2), why do we see so many start-up and academic activities in this space? As someone involved in DAC research, I'm curious to understand how we can apply chemical engineering and business modelling principles to build a viable use case. Even though the numbers don't stack up yet, there is still much to be explored and understood about DAC - as evident from the attached review paper by Wang et al. It provides a comprehensive overview of the current DAC startup landscape, ecosystem partners, opportunities and challenges in scaling up and commercialising different DAC technologies. Their review discusses over 50 DAC startups and their underlying technologies like solid sorbents, amine sorbents, physisorbents, ion exchange resins, and electrochemical approaches. It discusses challenges related to energy requirements, sorbent stability, and the need for partnerships with clean energy, CO2 utilisation/storage companies based on the specific DAC technology. What is critical, their work highlights the importance of DAC startups building partnerships and a business ecosystem involving investors, government, academia, co-producers (e.g. sorbent manufacturers, clean energy providers, CO2 utilisation/storage), and customers. What is your view on DAC? #carboncapture #climatechange #decarbonization #sustainability #business

A new study assessed carbon crediting mechanisms, addressing whether carbon credit projects lead to REAL emission reductions. Analyzing 2,346 carbon mitigation projects that account for nearly 1 billion tons of CO₂ (about 20% of all credits issued), researchers found that less than 16% of carbon credits issued constitute real emission reductions. Wind power projects in China and improved forest management in the US showed no statistically significant emission reductions. Cookstove projects achieved only 11% of claimed reductions, SF6 destruction 16%, and avoided deforestation 25%. Even the best-performing category, HFC-23 abatement, reached only 68% of claimed reductions. This assessment comes at a moment of carbon market expansion. The "offset achievement gap" identified by the study - 812 million credits that don't represent actual emission reductions - exceeds Germany's annual emissions. The research reveals three systematic issues: project developers often choose favorable data for their baseline or make unrealistic assumptions, methodologies sometimes use outdated data, and adverse selection leads to crediting projects that would have happened anyway (aka not "additional"). This evidence suggests carbon crediting mechanisms need reform to raise their potential for climate mitigation. It underscores the importance of scrutinizing carbon credit quality and prioritizing direct emission reductions over offsetting for businesses and investors. Kudos to Benedict Probst, Malte Toetzke, Andreas Kontoleon, Laura Diaz Anadon, Jan Minx, Barbara Haya, Lambert Schneider, Philipp Trotter, Thales A. P. West, Annelise Gill-Wiehl, Volker Hoffmann from great institutions.

What is wrong with the current state of engineering:👇 Labeling a building as having "Building Integrated Carbon Capture" while simultaneously releasing the stored carbon back into the atmosphere through processes like PtX is a clear illustration of the critical issues within the field of engineering today. Danish engineering firm Søren Jensen is advocating "Building Integrated Carbon Capture" as a climate mitigation solution by capturing carbon from their office building, only to then reuse it in PtX. However, such systems do not break the carbon cycle; they merely delay it. In fact, this approach exacerbates the problem by requiring additional energy to capture, transport, and process the carbon, only for it to be released again later. This results in an increase, rather than a decrease, in the overall carbon footprint. Such flawed methods are analogous to biogas production, where energy is wasted converting biomass into a lower-grade energy form that is ultimately burned again. This perpetuates the cycle of overconsumption without addressing the root cause: excessive energy use. Just as biogas has kept animal agriculture alive by making waste useful, carbon capture technologies create a demand for more energy to capture, process, and reuse carbon, further entrenching the cycle rather than challenging it. This situation exemplifies the way our capitalist system functions, with the flawed belief that we can consume our way out of a problem that is, at its core, caused by overconsumption. Danica Pension https://lnkd.in/d8NdGRS9

Young secondary forests 🌱 may be the planet’s most overlooked carbon sink As governments and corporations scramble to meet climate pledges, the search for reliable and scalable carbon removal strategies has turned increasingly toward forests. But while tree planting captures public imagination, a new study suggests a simpler, less costly strategy may deliver better results: Protecting young secondary forests already on the landscape. In a paper published in Nature Climate Change, researchers led by Nathaniel Robinson mapped aboveground carbon accumulation across more than 100,000 forest plots worldwide, spanning a century of regrowth. The work confirms that forests don’t store carbon at a constant rate: Removal rates vary wildly by age, region, and ecological conditions. In fact, the study finds a 200-fold difference between the slowest and fastest-growing sites. The sweet spot? Forests aged 20 to 40 years. At this stage, many exhibit peak carbon uptake, far exceeding the removals achieved in the first few decades of new regeneration. Tropical forests, in particular, perform best, reaching maximum sequestration levels around 23 years of age. Mediterranean and savanna ecosystems, by contrast, peak later and less dramatically. This temporal dynamic has practical implications. If natural regeneration began in 2025 across 800 million hectares of degraded land, the study estimates that 20.3 billion metric tons of carbon could be sequestered by 2050. Delaying that timeline by just five years could slash the benefit by nearly a quarter. Yet existing young forests could outperform freshly planted ones by as much as 820% on a per-hectare basis in some regions. That efficiency comes with urgency. Secondary forests are disproportionately at risk of clearance. In Latin America, they are ten times more likely to be lost than old-growth. In Brazil’s Amazon, half are destroyed within eight years. Yet current carbon market mechanisms provide little to no credit for preserving them, focusing instead on planting or managing older stands. The study’s one-kilometer resolution maps of carbon growth curves—tied to environmental variables such as soil, climate, and topography—offer policymakers and project developers sharper tools. In the race to close the emissions gap, protecting a forest already hard at work may be faster and cheaper than waiting for a sapling to grow. 🔭 Robinson, N. et al (2025). Protect young secondary forests for optimum carbon removal. Nature Climate Change. https://lnkd.in/gPQ4haPv

A mega-report launch today!🚀 We’ve been tracking the deliberations at the International Maritime Organization’s Intersessional Working Group last week. On the topic of onboard #carboncapture and storage (OCCS), member states have agreed to further develop regulations surrounding this technology to decarbonise #shipping, with emphasis on making sure its emissions reduction follows LCA guidelines.🔃 And this sentiment will be tabled at this week’s #MEPC meetings. Launching our CO2 offloading report is thus timely, as some of the findings can provide additional context for the OCCS discussions. 9️⃣ months in the making, this 500-page 😳 report is the culmination of a collaboration with Lloyd's Register and Arup; it is part of a largerGlobal Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) initiative to unlock the value chain of onboard captured CO2.⛓️ Too long? 😅 Read key findings below ⬇️ In our 2023 GCMD-Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey, 60% of the respondents indicated OCCS to be integral to the green transition,✅ with >50% of the Frontrunners🏃🏻 declaring interest to pilot one such solution by 2025. Compilation from Clarksons Research showed >30 installations and/or pending retrofits, with most of them focused on testing the efficacy of onboard carbon capture systems.🏭 Yet, OCCS remains a nascent decarbonisation solution.👶 It’s commercial adoption hinges on the identification of pathways to safely offload captured CO2, and an articulation of how captured CO2 is used or sequestered. Our study is meant to address some of these gaps.👇🏻 It is also meant to inform Project REMARCCABLE, a pilot we launched in 2022 to demonstrate OCCS as an end-to-end solution, practicable across the value chain. What did we learn?🙋🏻♀️ 🚢 That captured CO2 is most efficiently stored, transported, and offloaded in its dense liquid form; the temperature, pressure and purity specification will depend on its application   🚢 That offloading using an intermediate liquid CO2 receiving vessel is most scalable, especially if captured CO2 will be sequestered or used as a feedstock for synthetic fuels production 🚢 That ship-to-terminal transfer of bulk CO2 in ISO tank containers is the easiest modality to pilot today given limited port readiness and infrastructure availability 🚢 That operational risks for offloading CO2 are below the health risk criteria for crew and operators, and existing guidelines for handling CO2 as a cargo and for land-based operations can be extended to develop guidelines for offloading onboard captured CO2 This study is but a critical piece⚠️ in operationalising the value chain of onboard captured CO2. We thank all our partners, whose generous sharing made this study robust and relevant. ❤️ Observing this study were the Port of Rotterdam and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA). Together, we are stronger; together, we can💪🏻 Dr Sanjay C Kuttan, Eng Kiong Koh, Victor Pang, Brijesh Tewari

I am now in my 10th year working to scale carbon removal, and the math isn't adding up: We need BILLIONS of tonnes removed annually, but our industry is built to produce only thousands. We're optimizing for the wrong priorities, and it's preventing us from achieving the scale we need. Our carbon removal system has evolved to prioritize: • Corporate accounting precision over atmospheric impact • 1000+ year permanence over immediate large-scale action • Perfect MRV over pragmatic scaling solutions This isn't about casting blame – we built this system together with good intentions. But there's a fundamental misalignment between our atmospheric needs and what we're delivering. Scaling to gigatonne levels requires a fundamental reset. We need to separate emissions reduction from historical carbon removal and design systems specifically for scale. When facing climate tipping points, I'd prioritize removing 100 million tonnes for 10 years over 10 million tonnes for 100 years – but our current market isn't built that way. I've co-authored a piece with Nick van Osdol in Keep Cool exploring how we might reset our approach. If you work in carbon removal, climate policy, or corporate sustainability, I'd value your perspective on better aligning our market structures with atmospheric needs. Read the full analysis: https://lnkd.in/gkheCq5t