What is Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) ? What is the potential role of CCUS in tackling…

Question

What is Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) ? What is the potential role of CCUS in tackling climate change ?

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

CCUS captures carbon dioxide from large point sources or the air, transports it, and either reuses it in products or stores it permanently in deep geological formations. It matters most for hard-to-abate sectors like cement and steel, which NITI Aayog's 2022 CCUS framework links to India's net zero by 2070.

**Introduction**

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) traps carbon dioxide from large point sources such as power, steel and cement plants, or from the air, and reuses it or stores it permanently underground. The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report (2022) counts it among the tools needed for net zero.

**CCUS: How the Capture-to-Storage Chain Works**

SKETCH: flow | CCUS Value Chain
- Point source
- Capture
- Compression and transport
- Utilisation or storage

1. **Capture and transport**: CO2 is separated before or after combustion using solvents such as amines, compressed, and moved by pipeline or ship.
2. **Utilisation**: It can become urea, methanol or building materials, as at Tata Steel's 5 tonnes-per-day capture plant at Jamshedpur (2021).
3. **Storage**: It is injected into saline aquifers, depleted oil fields or basalt, as Norway's Sleipner project has done since 1996.

**Potential Role of CCUS in Tackling Climate Change**

1. **Hard-to-abate sectors**: Cement, steel and fertiliser release process emissions that renewables cannot remove, so NITI Aayog's CCUS policy framework (2022) sees it as important for net zero by 2070.
2. **Coal lock-in**: With energy producing about 76% of India's emissions in 2020 (Fourth Biennial Update Report, 2024), CCUS can clean young coal plants.
3. **Negative emissions**: Combined with bioenergy or direct air capture, it can remove CO2, and credits under the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (2023) can make it pay.
4. **Limits**: High cost, energy penalty, leakage risk and fossil fuel lock-in mean it must supplement renewables, not replace them.

**Conclusion**

CCUS is a bridge for unavoidable emissions. With mapped storage basins, carbon pricing and pilots, it can help India reach net zero by 2070 without stalling growth.

What is Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) ? What is the potential role of CCUS in tackling climate change ?

Model answer

Practise this question

Conservation19 questions

Ghissu