While some action has already been taken to mitigate climate change, most of the action has been focused primarily on eliminating emissions, e.g. by improving energy efficiency or electrifying processes with renewable electricity. However, to achieve the goal of climate neutrality, there is the debatable need to remove substantial (gigatons) amounts CO₂ from the atmosphere every year for decades to come.

Carbon capture technologies capture CO₂ either directly from the atmosphere or at a point source of emission. The most efficient way to capture CO₂ is from carbon point sources such as heat and power plants, waste-to-energy facilities and industrial plants as the concentration of CO₂ at a point source is much higher than in the atmosphere. Depending on the origin and use of the captured CO₂, the captured CO₂ can either result in climate-neutral emissions or even climate-negative emissions.

CO₂ from hard-to-abate sectors

Hard-to-abate sectors include industries where complete decarbonisation is prohibitively costly or technically impossible based on currently available technologies. Emissions from these industries are often related to the physical processes themselves, e.g. when limestone is transformed into cement. By capturing CO₂ from these processes, it becomes possible to make hard-to-abate sectors climate neutral.

CO₂ from biogenic sources

Sources of biogenic CO₂ cover plants using sustainable biomass, biogas plants, and biogenic waste. In other words, biogenic CO₂ originate from biological sources and are included in the natural carbon cycle. Hereby, the biogenic CO₂ becomes valuable for several uses: It can be removed completely from the atmosphere by storing it in the underground (negative emissions) or it can be used to avoid CO₂ emissions in other sectors by transforming the CO₂ into valuable climate-neutral products such as green fuels and green plastic.

Denmark has great potential to lead the development and implementation of carbon capture as several biogenic carbon point sources are located in Denmark. However, shortages of CO₂ supply are expected in the future, as the demand for carbon storage and utilisation is increasing, and the supply of CO₂ from point sources is decreasing due to optimisations and decommissioning of power plants.

Capturing CO₂ from point sources is a first and important step towards climate neutrality. Yet, the point sources alone will not drive the world’s CO₂ emissions to zero. Therefore, new ways of capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere must be developed and matured rapidly and within the next decade. In Denmark, research in direct CO2 capture is ongoing but it is still in its infancy and on a low technological readiness level. Several larger research investments in Denmark are aiming to change that.