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  • Perspective
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The role of CO2 capture and utilization in mitigating climate change

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 243–249 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

To offset the cost associated with CO2 capture and storage (CCS), there is growing interest in finding commercially viable end-use opportunities for the captured CO2. In this Perspective, we discuss the potential contribution of carbon capture and utilization (CCU). Owing to the scale and rate of CO2 production compared to that of utilization allowing long-term sequestration, it is highly improbable the chemical conversion of CO2 will account for more than 1% of the mitigation challenge, and even a scaled-up enhanced oil recovery (EOR)-CCS industry will likely only account for 4–8%. Therefore, whilst CO2-EOR may be an important economic incentive for some early CCS projects, CCU may prove to be a costly distraction, financially and politically, from the real task of mitigation.

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Figure 1: Illustration of the calculation of the mitigation challenge.
Figure 2: Global CO2-EOR capacity compared with regional CO2 sequestration targets.
Figure 3: The effect of blending methanol with gasoline.
Figure 4: CCS versus CCU—a perspective for the period 2010 to 2050.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, SW7 1NA, UK

    Niall Mac Dowell

  2. Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    Niall Mac Dowell, Nilay Shah & Geoffrey C. Maitland

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    Paul S. Fennell, Nilay Shah & Geoffrey C. Maitland

Authors
  1. Niall Mac Dowell
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  2. Paul S. Fennell
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  4. Geoffrey C. Maitland
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the planning of the paper. N.M.D. led the work, benefiting from discussions with all authors. All authors contributed to writing the paper, providing comments to the framework, and input in terms of numbers and references backing the analysis.

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Correspondence to Niall Mac Dowell.

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Mac Dowell, N., Fennell, P., Shah, N. et al. The role of CO2 capture and utilization in mitigating climate change. Nature Clim Change 7, 243–249 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3231

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