Subsidies key to carbon capture growth

Attempts to scale up CCUS have failed due to lack of guaranteed long-term revenue

Current market incentives may not be enough to support the rapid upscaling of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) and other carbon removal technologies needed to reach net zero, according to a recent paper from Japan’s Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE). CCUS has been touted as a route to not only directly reduce annual emissions, but also facilitate the production of blue hydrogen. The scale of carbon that must be captured to prevent temperatures from rising beyond 1.5°C is already immense. The IEA estimates that 7.6bn t CO₂/yr must be captured by 2050 to reach net zero that year. However, only 21 CCUS facilities—capturing c.40mn t CO₂/yr—had come on