Letter on carbon: Use it or store it?

Use of captured carbon to make synthetic fuels merits more attention from investors and policymakers

CCS is essentially a waste management business that is unlikely to deliver anything like the returns enjoyed for decades by the energy sector, at least not in the near-to-medium term. The upfront capital costs of developing permanent storage are huge, while the regulatory and policy landscape around CCS looks far from settled. Against this backdrop, is there a bigger prize to be had using captured CO₂ in the production of synthetic fuels that can be dropped into existing infrastructure? Project developers seem unconvinced. Fewer than 1% of the carbon-capture projects tracked by Gulf Energy Information’s Global Energy Infrastructure database are aimed at CO₂ usage, excluding enhanced oil reco