Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration


Negative emissions technologies, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sequester it, will be an important part of the portfolio of climate responses.

Several land-based negative emissions technologies are ready for large-scale deployment at costs competitive with emissions mitigation strategies. However, these existing options cannot provide the amount of negative emissions needed to meet climate goals without unprecedented changes in land use that could affect food availability and biodiversity.
Direct Air Capture

Terrestrial Carbon Removal and Sequestration

Planting forests, changing forest management to retain more carbon, and adjusting agricultural practices to enhance soil carbon storage.

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Bioenergy

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (BECCS)

The cultivation of crops which take up carbon dioxide as they grow and are used to produce electricity, liquid fuels, and/or heat. The carbon dioxide generated is captured and sequestered underground.

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Coastal blue carbon approaches have a relatively low capacity for carbon dioxide removal, but are low cost.
Coastal Blue Carbon

Coastal Blue Carbon

Practices that increase the amount of carbon stored in living plants or sediments in tidal marshlands, seagrass beds, and other tidal or salt-water wetlands.

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Some negative emissions technologies have a high potential capacity for carbon dioxide removal but are currently limited by high cost or lack of fundamental understanding.
Direct Air Capture

Direct Air Capture

Filtering processes that capture carbon dioxide from ambient air and sequester it underground.

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Carbon Mineralization

Carbon Mineralization

The use of reactive minerals (particularly mantle peridotite, basaltic lava, and other reactive rocks) to form chemical bonds with carbon dioxide.

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Geologic storage of carbon dioxide is critical to improve decarbonization of fossil-fuel power plants, and also critical for advancing direct air capture and BECCS.
Geologic Sequestration

Geologic Sequestration

Carbon dioxide captured through BECCS or direct air capture is injected into a geologic formation, such as a saline aquifer, where it remains in the pore space of the rock for a long time. This is not a negative emissions technology, but rather an option for the sequestration component of BECCS or direct air capture.

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A Research Agenda

Scaling the capacity of negative emissions technologies to meet expected needs for carbon removal will require a concerted research effort to address the constraints that currently limit deployment. The research agenda proposed in this report addresses gaps in scientific and technical understanding, and research needed for bringing negative emissions technologies up to scale, including cost reductions, deployment, and monitoring and verification.

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