Feasible deployment of carbon capture and storage and the requirements of climate targets

nature climate change Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02104-0 Feasible deployment of carbon capture and storage and the requirements of climate targets Received: 18 August 2023 Tsimafei Kazlou , Aleh Cherp 1,2 3,4 & Jessica Jewell 1,2,5,6 Accepted: 23 July 2024 Published online: 25 September 2024 Check for updates Climate change mitigation requires the large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS). Recent plans indicate an eight-fold increase in CCS capacity by 2030, yet the feasibility of CCS expansion is debated. Using historical growth of CCS and other policy-driven technologies, we show that if plans double between 2023 and 2025 and their failure rates decrease by half, CCS could reach 0.37 GtCO2 yr−1 by 2030—lower than most 1.5 °C pathways but higher than most 2 °C pathways. Staying on-track to 2 °C would require that in 2030–2040 CCS accelerates at least as fast as wind power did in the 2000s, and that after 2040, it grows faster than nuclear power did in the 1970s to 1980s. Only 10% of mitigation pathways meet these feasibility constraints, and virtually all of them depict <600 GtCO2 captured and stored by 2100. Relaxing the constraints by assuming no failures of CCS plans and growth as fast as flue-gas desulfurization would approximately double this amount. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) plays a key role in climate mitigation pathways, yet its feasibility is vigorously debated1–3. The recent interest in CCS4–6, including negative emissions technologies—direct air capture (DACCS) and bioenergy with CCS (BECCS)—is reflected in plans to increase CCS capacity eight-fold from 2023 to 20307. However, 10 years ago, a similar wave of CCS plans5 largely failed8,9. Can the new push bring CCS on track10–13 for the Paris climate targets? Answering this question requires overcoming three challenges. The first is anticipating how many CCS plans are likely to succeed. The second is projecting medium-term growth of CCS, given the uncertainty about the drivers of, and barriers to, its uptake14,15. The third is estimating feasible long-term growth rates that depend on the size of the future CCS market16,17. We address these challenges by building on the tradition of using empirical evidence18–26 from historical technology analogues or reference cases27,28. Using advanced policy-driven technologies as reference cases, we contribute with three methodological innovations. First, we analyse historical failure rates of planned projects to estimate feasible near-term (5–10 years) CCS deployment. Second, we use this estimate to project a range of medium-term (10–20 years) CCS expansion, assuming quasi-exponential growth typical of early stages of technology deployment. Finally, we estimate the feasible range of long-term (20–80 years) CCS growth rates based on the peak growth rates of historical analogues. Thus, we develop an approach for projecting the deployment of emerging policy-driven technologies across the first three phases of the technology life-cycle—the formative phase29–31, the acceleration phase19 and the stable growth phase19. Finally, we compare our findings to CCS growth in the three recent IPCC scenario ensembles32–34 and estimate the feasible range of CO2 captured and stored with CCS over the 21st century. We find that only a handful of climate mitigation pathways (10%, IPCC categories C1–C4) depict CCS capacity growth compatible with even the most optimistic assumptions when (1) CCS plans double by 2025 and their failure rate decreases by half; (2) CCS expansion Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. 2Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. 3Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University, Vienna, Austria. 4International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden. 5Division of Physical Resource Theory, Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. 6Advancing Systems Analysis Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxeburg, Austria. e-mail: 1 Nature Climate Change | Volume 14 | October 2024 | 1047–1055 1047 Technology deployment Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02104-0 Formative phase Acceleration phase Stable growth phase Saturation phase Niche applications, erratic growth Increasing returns, quasi-exponential growth Balance of forces, quasi-linear growth Market limits, stagnating growth Faster stable growth Maximum growth rate More optimistic assumptions Faster acceleration More plans + lower failure rates Acceleration rate Slower stable growth Take-off Plans/failures ? Slower acceleration ? Less optimistic assumptions Fewer plans + higher failure rates Time Fig. 1 | Method for projecting the feasible deployment of policy-driven technologies along the phases of technology growth using feasibility spaces. To construct each feasibility space, we use a tailored set of metrics and reference cases most appropriate to each of the first three phases of the technology lifecycle—formative, acceleration and stable growth (Methods and Table 1). For the formative phase, we project feasible CCS deployment (Gt yr−1) based on project plans and their failure rates; for the acceleration phase, the acceleration rate of reference technologies; and for the stable growth rate, we use the maximum growth rate at the inflection point of the S-curve normalized to the market size. This approach can be applied not only to global but also to national and regional targets, as well as to other climate mitigation and energy technologies. Error bars are used to illustrate the uncertainty in feasible deployment over time. in 2030–2040 is as fast as solar power expansion was in the 2010s or nuclear power expansion was in the 1960s and 1970s; and (3) CCS grows over the following decades as fast as the growth of nuclear in the 1970s and 1980s. Only 33% of pathways meet the first two constraints and only 26% meet the last one. Virtually all pathways that meet all three constraints depict <200 GtCO2 captured and stored by 2070 and <600 GtCO2 by 2100 (at the 95th percentile). Under the less realistic assumptions of a doubling of CCS plans by 2025, a zero failure rate and growth similar to that of flue-gas desulfurization (FGD), this amount could increase to 400 GtCO2 by 2070 and 1,100 GtCO2 by 2100, which still stands in contrast to a large number of 1.5 °C- and 2 °C-compatible pathways, which envision up to 700 GtCO2 captured and stored by 2070 and 1,400 GtCO2 by 2100. For the formative phase, which we find can be complete by 2030, we construct a feasibility space based on near-term CCS plans and historical failure rates of past CCS (Supplementary Note 1) and early nuclear power plans. For the acceleration phase, which we assume would occur in 2030–2040, we construct a feasibility space (...truncated)