CCUS Market Set for Growth in Key Industries, Finds IDTechEx New Report

Recognized as one of the key technologies essential to achieving net-zero emissions targets, the momentum behind carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) deployment is building up. The new IDTechEx report, “Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Markets 2023-2043“, highlights what the CCUS industry has been doing to overcome historical challenges and position itself to reach the scale required for net-zero emissions, a bold goal set by more than 70 countries and recently reinforced at the UN’s Climate Change Conference (COP27).

IDTechEx’s updated report brings the latest developments across the CCUS industry that have shaped the current market landscape, including regulatory incentives, business models, project delivery strategy, technological innovation, and more. Based on the drivers and hurdles for CCUS uptake, IDTechEx’s latest forecast expects the global CCUS capacity to reach 1.8 gigatonnes per annum by 2043. Although still a modest capacity compared to what is needed for countries to achieve their net-zero commitments, attaining the gigatonne level of CCUS deployment will mean unprecedented growth to the industry and large amounts of investments.

The CCUS Market: Will It Finally Take off?

CCUS encompasses a range of technologies designed to capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and provide long-term sequestration solutions or utilization routes for the captured CO₂. Though deployment over the past ten years has been slower than what is needed to limit global warming, CCUS’ competitive suitability to decarbonize ‘hard-to-abate’ industries such as energy, chemicals, cement, and steel production, has shifted the narrative from whether CCUS is needed, towards how quickly can it be deployed at scale.

The major steps involved in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). Source: IDTechEx – “Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Markets 2023-2043”

As decarbonization commitments worldwide grow, the CCUS industry is starting to shift to new business models of dedicated CO₂ storage and emerging use cases for CO₂ such as CO₂-based polymers or building materials. The market has been dominated by enhanced oil recovery (EOR), which involves pumping CO₂ in geological reservoirs to extract additional fossil fuels, due to the difficulty in making an economical business case for the safe disposal of CO₂ alone. However, IDTechEx’s new research finds that with rising carbon prices, favorable regulation, and an ever-growing demand for lower-carbon-intensity products, the revenue streams are becoming more diverse, making the market signals stronger for CCUS deployment.

In this new report, IDTechEx also explores how the sector is moving away from full-chain CCUS projects (integrated capture, transport, and storage or use that serve one large emitter) to developing multi-user, shared infrastructure networks. Many CCUS project developers are investing in a CCUS ‘as-a-service’ model by linking nearby CO₂ emitters through a collection hub and then transporting the CO₂ to clusters of storage or utilization sinks, either by ship or backbone pipelines. The concept is akin to waste management and is set to reduce commercial risk and foster economies of scale, although it requires coordination amongst multiple players. Adapting to the new needs of the CCUS market, carbon capture players upstream are offering the next generation of modular, easy-to-retrofit carbon capture units to serve emitters of all sizes across many industries, particularly waste-to-energy, cement, iron & steel, and hydrogen.