CarbonShot: Federal Policy Options for Carbon Removal in the United States

The document identifies critical infrastructure and policy needs for scaling carbon removal in the United States, including the requirement for low-carbon energy to power direct air capture, the need for independent life-cycle assessments, and the expansion of geologic storage and CO2 pipeline networks. It emphasizes the importance of improving monitoring systems for natural carbon capture and increasing land use efficiency to balance food production with ecosystem restoration.

• Direct air capture requires approximately 2 terawatt-hours of low-carbon power or equivalent thermal energy per 1 MtCO2 removed annually and must utilize low-carbon energy sources to achieve net negative results.
• While the United States has a geologic storage capacity of hundreds or thousands of gigatons, scaling this requires investment; the National Academies of Sciences suggests a federal investment of $250 million per year in research and development.
• The current Class VI permitting process for CO2 injection in the United States, including post-injection monitoring, is considered burdensome and may hinder the scaling of underground storage.
• Current CO2 pipeline buildout driven by the 45Q tax credit likely targets only the most cost-effective near-term options, whereas a system for scaled carbon removal would be significantly larger and may require federal intervention to access optimal direct air capture areas.
• Improving natural carbon capture monitoring requires enhancing sampling networks (specifically on-farm soil carbon measurement), investing in remote sensing tools like LiDAR, monitoring land management practices, and centralizing data into a single spatially explicit system.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). CarbonShot: Federal Policy Options for Carbon Removal in the United States. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/carbonshot-creating-strong-enabling-environment-carbon-removal.pdf

Chicago

World Resources Institute. CarbonShot: Federal Policy Options for Carbon Removal in the United States. n.d. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/carbonshot-creating-strong-enabling-environment-carbon-removal.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=CarbonShot: Federal Policy Options for Carbon Removal in the United States |url=https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/carbonshot-creating-strong-enabling-environment-carbon-removal.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendcarbonshot, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{CarbonShot: Federal Policy Options for Carbon Removal in the United States}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/carbonshot-creating-strong-enabling-environment-carbon-removal.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }