The modeled pathways, what we name projections, for deployment of carbon seize and storage are from textual content and tables within the Worldwide Vitality Company’s Vitality Expertise Views and World Vitality Outlook experiences, and from correspondence with the IEA. The 2008 and 2010 projections are from the IEA’s Blue Map state of affairs; a second 2010 projection is from the Web Zero by 2050 state of affairs; 2018 is from the Sustainable Growth state of affairs; and 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 are from the Introduced Pledges, Acknowledged Insurance policies and Web Zero by 2050 situations. A few of these situations symbolize pathways designed to realize a selected temperature or focus of CO2. Different situations symbolize what is feasible based mostly on present insurance policies or pledges. Pathways from years the place underlying information was not offered within the IEA’s report had been excluded.
In response to emailed questions, a spokesperson for the IEA stated, “The IEA’s long-term modelling and situations will not be designed to foretell future deployment of applied sciences; the totally different situations we produce are meant to discover the potential implications and trade-offs of various coverage, expertise and funding selections.” The company stated that solar energy has succeeded partly due to profitable coverage assist for it, particularly in China, and that CCS has lagged due to a scarcity of comparable assist. It added that CCS stays part of the answer portfolio for industries which may in any other case be onerous to decarbonize. The spokesperson famous {that a} file variety of CCS tasks are beneath building.
Information for the precise CCS capability derives from the IEA’s CCUS Initiatives Database. We outlined large-scale tasks as these with the estimated capability to retailer not less than 500,000 metric tons of CO2 yearly. The information contains solely tasks that had been accomplished and that completely retailer CO2, moderately than those who make the most of CO2 for enhanced restoration of oil and fuel or different makes use of, since these makes use of can create extra carbon than they retailer or have looser necessities for monitoring.
Of the 12 accomplished CCS injection tasks, 11 stay operational and one has been decommissioned. The annual complete for carbon saved assumes the tasks operated at their said capability annually since launch, which few have accomplished. The comparability to the quantity of CO2 emitted by a single massive energy plant is derived from information offered by the U.S. Vitality Info Administration.
The projections for solar energy manufacturing are from the IEA’s World Vitality Outlook experiences. Information depicted is from the Introduced Pledges, Present Insurance policies, New Insurance policies, Web Zero by 2050, Reference, Sustainable Growth and Acknowledged Insurance policies situations. Information was restricted to projections from IEA experiences from each different yr to make the chart much less cluttered.
Information for the precise deployment of photo voltaic vitality was taken from IEA’s World Vitality Outlook and Vitality Expertise Views experiences.
Information evaluating projections and deployment of carbon storage and photo voltaic vitality was initially compiled by researchers Rory French and Lindsey Gulden.
The 6 billion tons goal determine is derived from the 2024 paper “The feasibility of reaching gigatonne scale CO2 storage by mid-century.” It displays the median amount of subsurface carbon storage amongst situations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change’s Sixth Evaluation Report state of affairs database which have a better than 67% likelihood of limiting warming to 2°C.
The IPCC stated it doesn’t develop or run the fashions that create the situations in its database, and famous that the Evaluation Report contains data contextualizing and questioning the fashions’ assumptions round photo voltaic and CCS deployment.
The estimate of 768,000 sq. miles of land wanted to develop biomass comes from the Sixth Evaluation Report’s Technical Abstract, which states that the cropland space wanted to maintain warming beneath 1.5°C with no or restricted overshoot is round 199 million hectares in 2050.
The estimate of 68,000 miles of pipeline is sourced from the 2021 Web-Zero America report.
To calculate what number of large-scale CCS reservoirs can be required to satisfy the 6 billion metric tons goal, we assumed the tasks would bury as a lot as the most important carbon storage venture has in its largest yr, the Gorgon Carbon Dioxide Injection Challenge in Australia, which injected 2.7 million tons in 2019. That determine got here from the 2025 annual report from the London Register of Subsurface CO2 Storage, produced by Imperial School London.
To calculate the whole annual price for CCS tasks by 2050, we multiplied the $85-per-ton subsidy the U.S. affords business in its 45Q tax credit score by 6 billion tons.
China’s 2025 army funds is sourced from the Stockholm Worldwide Peace Analysis Institute.
The U.N.’s humanitarian and growth support funds for 2024 comes from the U.N. Programs Chief Executives Board for Coordination’s bills factsheet.
