Technological Carbon Removal in the United States

This working paper by the World Resources Institute explores the potential for technological carbon removal in the United States, focusing on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), direct air capture with storage (DACS), and frontier technologies. It identifies the infrastructure, policy, and research needs required to scale these technologies to help meet Paris Agreement temperature targets.

• Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) requires significant safeguards and accounting to ensure net climate benefits, as some forms could harm natural ecosystems and food security or fail to provide actual carbon removal due to land use changes. Scaling beneficial BECCS depends on reducing CCS costs, expanding CO2 transport and storage infrastructure, and creating supply chains for non-dedicated energy crop feedstocks like municipal waste, agricultural residues, and forest byproducts.
• Direct air capture with storage (DACS) has no obvious technical limit, and while geological storage capacity in the United States appears sufficient, the technology is currently constrained by high costs and a need for intensive low-carbon energy. Large-scale deployment would require lowering technology costs, building CO2 storage operations, and may influence the future composition of the U.S. energy sector due to its high heat and power requirements.
• To advance carbon removal, the paper suggests investing in three areas: research, development, and demonstration (RD&D); deployment support; and advancements in fossil fuel carbon capture, storage, and utilization. Specifically, implementing CCS in existing biorefineries and fossil fuel facilities could act as a catalyst for the broader development of CO2 transport and storage technologies.
• Large-scale, sustained deployment of carbon removal technologies is unlikely without regulatory mandates or carbon pricing mechanisms. While CO2 utilization markets can support early-stage deployment, they are insufficient to reach the gigaton scale required by global climate models because these technologies are not cost-competitive with traditional goods without explicit or implicit carbon pricing.
• The paper identifies several 'frontier technologies' for carbon removal that require further research, development, and demonstration to determine if they can be scaled. These include seawater capture, enhanced weathering, plant selection or engineering, and biochar.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Technological Carbon Removal in the United States. https://www.wri.org/research/technological-carbon-removal-united-states

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Technological Carbon Removal in the United States. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/technological-carbon-removal-united-states.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Technological Carbon Removal in the United States |url=https://www.wri.org/research/technological-carbon-removal-united-states |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendtechnological, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Technological Carbon Removal in the United States}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/technological-carbon-removal-united-states}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }