Post-combustion technology, which captures the carbon after it is burned, is more widely implemented already. There are several pre-combustion schemes under way at the moment – including those under development at Teesside, Humberside and Liverpool in the UK – that aim to store emissions and produce low-carbon hydrogen for industrial use. These are separated and only the hydrogen is burned. The fuel – typically methane or gasified coal – is converted into a mix of hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

Pre-combustion capture involves removing carbon dioxide from fuels before they are fully combusted. These have “decades of evidence to show that they are feasible” and are also “increasingly economical”. The two leading approachesĪt the moment, the two approaches to carbon capture that are furthest along are pre-combustion and post-combustion carbon capture, says Stuart Haszeldine, professor of carbon capture at Edinburgh University. We should see “a thriving global sector made up of new companies by the end of the decade”. Carbon removal will form the basis of a large new industry, with the development of the market for carbon emissions creating new business models, he says. Interest from the private sector is also booming, with a “thriving ecosystem of startups” that are “attracting early-stage risk capital from a number of climate-focused venture funds, corporate investors and philanthropic foundations”. Governments around the world are investing large sums of money in this area with the US Department of Energy alone putting $3.3bn into various carbon reduction technologies, says Shebbeare.

To put this into context, the output of the global oil industry grew 42-fold between 19. Shebbeare estimates that this will need to grow 200-fold over the next three decades to an annual figure of ten billion tonnes. Much of this carbon dioxide is used in the oil industry rather than stored permanently. Currently, the carbon capture market amounts to roughly 40-50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, or just 0.1% of human-related emissions, says Andrew Shebbeare of Counteract, which invests in a range of carbon removal technologies. Thus the necessity of continuing to operate at least some carbon emitting industries means that a large amount of carbon will need to be captured if net zero is to become a reality. Herculano suggests developing renewables, eating less meat, taking fewer flights and investing in “proven and price competitive” solutions such as “more afforestation and reforestation projects” as preferable. A report by climate group One Earth concluded that carbon capture is “risky and expensive” compared to alternative approaches. “If we do climate change mitigation and nature-based solutions correctly, there will be no need for direct carbon capture technologies,” says Gabriela Herculano, chief executive and co-founder of fintech firm iClima Earth. The idea of using carbon reduction to eliminate net emissions sits uneasily with many environmentalists, who prefer to focus on reducing emissions in the first place.

Nonetheless, the entire principle of CCS is controversial. As the name implies, CCS involves trapping carbon emissions and locking them away so that they don’t enter the atmosphere, and even in some cases re-using them. Carbon caption and storage (CCS) technologies could offer a way to square these competing priorities.

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