Abstract

The capture and use of carbon dioxide to create valuable products might lower the net costs of reducing emissions or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Here we review ten pathways for the utilization of carbon dioxide. Pathways that involve chemicals, fuels and microalgae might reduce emissions of carbon dioxide but have limited potential for its removal, whereas pathways that involve construction materials can both utilize and remove carbon dioxide. Land-based pathways can increase agricultural output and remove carbon dioxide. Our assessment suggests that each pathway could scale to over 0.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide utilization annually. However, barriers to implementation remain substantial and resource constraints prevent the simultaneous deployment of all pathways.

Keywords

Carbon dioxideBio-energy with carbon capture and storageEnvironmental scienceResource (disambiguation)Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphereNegative carbon dioxide emissionCarbon dioxide removalSoftware deploymentCarbon fibersGreenhouse gasCarbon sequestrationNatural resource economicsWaste managementBiochemical engineeringChemistryComputer scienceEngineeringEcology

MeSH Terms

Carbon DioxideCarbon SequestrationCharcoalForestsMicroalgaePhotosynthesisSoilTechnology

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Publication Info

Year
2019
Type
review
Volume
575
Issue
7781
Pages
87-97
Citations
2036
Access
Closed

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Cite This

Cameron Hepburn, Ella Adlen, J. R. Beddington et al. (2019). The technological and economic prospects for CO2 utilization and removal. Nature , 575 (7781) , 87-97. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1681-6

Identifiers

DOI
10.1038/s41586-019-1681-6
PMID
31695213

Data Quality

Data completeness: 86%