CARBON CAPTURE, UTILIZATION, AND STORAGE (CCUS) IN CLEAN INDUSTRY

This policy brief by Energy Innovation argues that carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) should be reserved for niche industrial applications that cannot be readily electrified, prioritizing efficiency and electrification as primary decarbonization strategies for the industrial sector.

• The industrial sector accounts for nearly one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, primarily due to burning fossil fuels for heat and 'process emissions' from chemical reactions in the chemicals and cement industries.
• Electrification is preferred over CCUS because CCUS does not address upstream fossil fuel extraction emissions, only captures approximately 90 percent of CO2 at the point of capture, may worsen ammonia emissions, extends the life of fossil fuel infrastructure, and requires expensive, energy-intensive infrastructure.
• CCUS is identified as a crucial long-term solution for two specific areas: process emissions in the glass, chemicals, and cement industries that cannot be solved by fuel switching, and bioenergy combustion or gasification to create low-carbon chemicals like olefins and methanol.
• There are four short-term or temporary use cases for CCUS: converting refinery byproducts into blue hydrogen, decarbonizing the one-third of U.S. industrial process heat that is currently difficult to electrify, utilizing high-purity CO2 streams (which are cheapest in natural gas processing and ethanol production), and maintaining low emissions at new, efficient facilities that will not fuel-switch for decades.

APA

Deshpande, S. (2026). CARBON CAPTURE, UTILIZATION, AND STORAGE (CCUS) IN CLEAN INDUSTRY. Energy Innovation. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Carbon-Capture-Utilization-And-Storage-Uses-In-Clean-Industry-1.pdf

Chicago

Deshpande, Sonali. CARBON CAPTURE, UTILIZATION, AND STORAGE (CCUS) IN CLEAN INDUSTRY. Energy Innovation, 2026. https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Carbon-Capture-Utilization-And-Storage-Uses-In-Clean-Industry-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Deshpande |first1=Sonali |title=CARBON CAPTURE, UTILIZATION, AND STORAGE (CCUS) IN CLEAN INDUSTRY |publisher=Energy Innovation |date=February 2026 |url=https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Carbon-Capture-Utilization-And-Storage-Uses-In-Clean-Industry-1.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{deshpande2026carbon, author = {Deshpande, Sonali}, title = {{CARBON CAPTURE, UTILIZATION, AND STORAGE (CCUS) IN CLEAN INDUSTRY}}, institution = {Energy Innovation}, year = {2026}, month = feb, url = {https://energyinnovation.org/wp-content/uploads/Carbon-Capture-Utilization-And-Storage-Uses-In-Clean-Industry-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }