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Next event: 22/04/2026 @ 2 pm BST: Is electrification the answer for all transport, or do hydrogen and other molecular fuels have a vital role to play?
Research support: If you or your organisation need support with techno‑economic assessment (TEA), life‑cycle assessment (LCA), or the development of robust net-zero strategies for industrial assets or clusters, I also work with partners on bespoke analysis and training. Book an initial consultation via my website: book.drhanak.com
Context
In this edition, I wanted to look at a question that keeps coming up in discussions with industry partners, policymakers and fellow researchers: is 2026 finally the year when carbon capture moves from a collection of pilots to a serious, system‑scale decarbonisation tool? Across Europe and beyond, we are seeing a wave of projects reaching final investment decision, new hub‑style infrastructures being announced, and direct air capture projects pushing capacities that would have sounded unrealistic just a few years ago.
From my perspective, we are clearly beyond the “niche demonstration” phase, but we are not yet in a world where CCUS is a mature, low‑risk option that every industrial emitter can simply plug into their net‑zero plan. The economy still depends heavily on policy support, infrastructure is uneven, and public acceptance remains fragile in some regions. There is no silver bullet here. CCUS can be a critical part of the portfolio, especially for hard‑to‑abate sectors and carbon removals, but only if we remain honest about costs, limitations and trade‑offs.
Today, I would like to walk you through where CCUS actually stands in 2026, what is genuinely new compared to even two or three years ago, and what this means if you are an engineer, manager or policymaker trying to make real decisions rather than just repeat slogans. You get my point: this is not about perfection; it is about progress that is technically and economically defensible.
Why carbon capture in 2026 matters
Let me start with the big picture. Across Europe, 2026 is being framed by many as the year in which carbon capture and storage finally starts to scale in a visible way. The European Energy Research Alliance (EERA CCS) describes 2026 as a “turning point” where CCS is moving “from the margins to the mainstream”, building on a 2025 pipeline in which ten major initiatives reached final investment decision, including full‑chain projects linking industrial emitters to offshore storage. This matters because it signals that we are no longer talking about isolated power‑plant retrofits, but about multi‑site, cross‑border infrastructure.
At the same time, global CCUS market assessments show both progress and a large remaining gap. A recent H1 2026 market outlook notes that there were 42 CCUS projects operational in 2025, increasing capacity by about 25%, yet more than 650 projects are in various stages of development and the total deployed capacity is still far below what is needed for credible 1.5–2 °C pathways. This implies that while the project pipeline is impressive on paper, timely execution, permitting and financing will determine whether CCUS becomes material for climate targets or stays marginal.
On the carbon removal side, 2026 is also a pivotal year. Carbon Engineering’s Stratos facility in Texas is expected to capture between 0.5 and 1 million tonnes of CO₂ per year when fully ramped up, making it the world’s largest direct air capture plant, while other players like Climeworks continue to expand in Europe and the Middle East. From my perspective, these capacities are still small relative to global emissions, but they represent an important scaling step for DAC technologies that only a decade ago were mostly confined to academic papers and small pilots.
Policy remains the main driver behind all this. In key markets such as the United States, the 45Q tax credit provides significant per‑tonne support for captured and stored CO₂, and recent analyses estimate that global public support for CCUS (including DAC) via tax credits and other incentives exceeds 30 billion dollars in total. In parallel, European initiatives, including national support schemes and cross‑border infrastructure frameworks, are pushing CCS hubs in the North Sea region and beyond. This poses both an opportunity and a challenge: projects look attractive as long as the policy environment is stable, but any regulatory U‑turn could quickly undermine investor confidence.
How CCUS actually works at the system scale
When we talk about “CCUS scaling up”, it is easy to think only about capture units integrated into industrial facilities, but the real story in 2026 is about integrated systems. At a typical industrial site, post‑combustion capture using amine‑based solvents still dominates, with capture efficiencies of 85–95% technically achievable when process integration is carefully executed. Capture costs for first‑generation amine scrubbing in power and large industrial plants often fall in the range of 50–100 (or more) £/tonne of CO₂, depending on plant size, fuel, and energy prices, consistent with the ranges reported in recent industry outlooks and conference agendas. Yet for many brownfield sites, this remains the most mature option.
However, capture is only the first piece. The emerging hub‑and‑cluster model, which is particularly relevant for regions such as Teesside, focuses on shared CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure that can serve multiple emitters. Industry analyses highlight that shared pipeline networks linking industrial clusters to saline aquifers or depleted hydrocarbon fields are becoming essential to make CCUS cost‑effective, because they distribute capital costs and utilisation risk across several projects. From my perspective, this is exactly where places like the UK’s East Coast Cluster and Northern Endurance Partnership are positioning themselves as backbone infrastructures rather than bespoke, single‑project solutions.
Storage is also maturing. The Brevik cement plant in Norway, for example, became the first in Europe to capture CO₂ at scale and send it offshore for permanent storage, demonstrating a full CCS chain from process stack to subsea reservoir. Across Europe, a growing number of projects are following this model, with ten large initiatives reaching FID in 2025 alone. This shows that geological storage is no longer just a theoretical option but something that regulators, operators and communities are learning to manage in practice.
On the utilisation side, progress is more uneven. Many pathways such as synthetic fuels, chemicals or mineralisation remain either niche or in early commercial stages, with techno‑economic analyses often showing limited mitigation potential at high cost unless they are carefully targeted at specific value chains. From my experience in process modelling and techno-economic assessments, this is where rigorous system‑level assessment is crucial. It is very easy to be seduced by a neat reaction pathway while overlooking energy penalties, upstream emissions, or market constraints that undermine the climate benefit.
What is genuinely new in 2026?
So, what makes 2026 different from 2018 or even 2022? First, the scale and diversity of projects. The CCUS Market Outlook H1 2026 stresses that 42 projects were already operational by 2025, with a 25% capacity increase year‑on‑year, while more than 650 are in development across power, cement, steel, hydrogen, and DAC. This suggests that investors are no longer treating CCUS as a one‑off experiment, but as a portfolio play with different technologies, regions and business models.
Second, we see specific flagship projects reshaping expectations. Stratos in Texas, planned to capture up to 1 million tonnes of CO₂ annually from ambient air, exemplifies the move from tens of thousands of tonnes per year to the low‑million‑tonne scale in DAC. In parallel, European CCS hubs linked to projects such as Northern Lights and the North Sea storage complexes illustrate multi‑client, cross‑border value chains, with EERA CCS emphasising that 2026 is the year when these systems begin operating at meaningful scale. This is a step change compared to earlier single‑site demonstrations.
Third, the policy narrative is maturing. While tax credits like 45Q remain central and are considered relatively resilient across different US administrations, discussions in 2026 explicitly highlight concerns about long‑term policy stability, regional differences in carbon pricing, and the need for predictable regulatory frameworks to justify multi‑billion‑currency investments in capture plants and pipelines. That is why I keep stressing to both companies and policymakers: CCUS deployment is not just an engineering challenge, it is a policy and market‑design challenge.
Finally, criticism of CCUS is becoming more sophisticated. Commentaries now focus less on generic “greenwashing” claims and more on concrete issues: the risk that CCUS prolongs fossil fuel production, the uneven distribution of projects across regions, and the need for robust monitoring, reporting and verification of stored CO₂. From my perspective, this is healthy. Honest debate forces projects to demonstrate real climate additionality and not simply rely on policy incentives.
Is CCUS a good deal compared to other options?
A question I hear a lot is: why invest in CCUS when we could “just” electrify, deploy renewables, or switch to hydrogen? The straightforward answer is that in many cases we should do those things first, but there remain sectors where process emissions cannot be eliminated simply by changing the energy carrier. Cement is the classic example. Around two‑thirds of its CO₂ emissions come from the calcination of limestone, which will occur regardless of whether the kiln is fired with gas, hydrogen or electricity. For such processes, capture at source becomes a necessary complement.
If we look at costs, the picture is nuanced. Recent CCUS conference materials emphasise that high capital costs and substantial operating expenses mean that many large‑scale projects still rely on policy support and carbon pricing to be viable. By contrast, renewables such as utility‑scale solar and onshore wind have seen dramatic cost reductions over the last decade and can often compete without subsidies in favourable locations. This implies that for power generation and some forms of heat, renewables plus electrification will often be the more economical decarbonisation path, while CCUS is better reserved for genuinely hard‑to‑abate emissions and carbon removals.
Comparing CCUS with hydrogen is also context‑dependent. Low‑carbon hydrogen produced from natural gas with CCS (so‑called “blue” hydrogen) can mitigate emissions significantly when capture rates are high and upstream methane leaks are well controlled, but the overall system still depends on fossil inputs and capture infrastructure. Green hydrogen from electrolysis powered by renewables avoids fossil fuels but currently comes at higher cost and requires large amounts of low‑carbon electricity. From my perspective, you get my point – there is no silver bullet. Each pathway can be optimal in specific settings, and rigorous techno‑economic and life‑cycle assessment is essential to avoid unintended consequences.
This is exactly where I see the role of research and tools like TEA and LCA. They allow us to quantify not only the levelised cost per tonne of CO₂ avoided, but also the broader impacts on energy systems, resource use, and local environments. Linking process models of capture units, pipelines and storage reservoirs with economic and environmental data is not glamorous, but it is precisely what we need to prioritise robust projects over fashionable ones.
What this means for your decisions
If you are an industrial operator, 2026 should not simply be the year you “wait and see” what happens with CCUS. Instead, it is the moment to map your emissions sources, understand which ones are realistically addressable via efficiency, fuel switching or electrification, and identify the residual fraction that might require capture or removals. The emerging hub model means that being in, or near, an industrial cluster like Teesside, the Humber, Rotterdam or the Gulf Coast could significantly change your option set and cost structure.
For engineers and project developers, the key is to move beyond conceptual enthusiasm and into integrated design. That means considering capture systems, utilities, heat integration, CO₂ conditioning, and compression as part of a whole‑site optimisation, not as standalone add‑ons. It also means engaging early with potential transport and storage providers to understand pressure, purity and deliverability requirements. From my perspective, multidisciplinary collaboration between process engineers, geoscientists, economists and policy experts is no longer optional if we want viable projects.
Policymakers and regulators, on the other hand, face a slightly different challenge. They must design frameworks that are generous enough to de‑risk first‑of‑a‑kind projects, yet predictable and stringent enough to avoid locking in underperforming assets. This involves aligning tax credits, carbon pricing, permitting and long‑term liability rules, while also considering international measures such as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which may indirectly pressure trading partners to adopt CCUS or equivalent measures. It is not easy, but inconsistent or stop‑start policies are, in my view, the fastest way to undermine all the engineering work currently underway.
Finally, for researchers and educators, 2026 is a reminder that our role is not limited to publishing papers. We need to translate complex models into insights that decision‑makers can use, help train the next generation of engineers and technicians for CCUS deployment, and remain honest about what we know and what we do not know. I believe that regions like Teesside, with their industrial legacy and emerging net‑zero ambitions, are uniquely positioned to be living laboratories for this transition, but only if we invest in skills and communication as much as in hardware.
Closing thoughts
So, is 2026 the year carbon capture finally scales up? From my perspective, it is the year when we move decisively from “if” to “how” and “where”. The number of projects, the scale of flagship facilities like Stratos, and the emergence of European storage hubs all indicate that CCUS is becoming a serious pillar of decarbonisation strategies, particularly for heavy industry and carbon removals. At the same time, the technology is not a get‑out‑of‑jail‑free card: costs are still high, policy risk is real, and CCUS must be deployed alongside, not instead of, aggressive electrification, renewables and demand‑side measures.
I would encourage you to think about CCUS not as a monolithic solution, but as a family of tools that can be combined in different ways depending on your site, sector and time horizon. Some of you will find that CCUS is a central pillar of your strategy; others may conclude that it plays only a marginal role compared to efficiency and electrification. Both outcomes are fine, as long as they are grounded in robust analysis rather than wishful thinking or political slogans. Am I practising what I preach? In my own research and teaching, I am trying to make sure that we always link elegant models back to the messy reality of industrial sites and policy frameworks.
What has been your experience so far with CCUS discussions in your organisation or region? Do you see it as a realistic option for your assets, or is it still perceived as too costly or too complex compared to other pathways? I would genuinely love to hear your perspective, especially any concrete numbers or lessons learned from feasibility studies or pilots you have been involved in. Your insights could help guide and inspire others — and I would love to feature them in future editions of this newsletter.
Next event: 22/04/2026 @ 2 pm BST: Is electrification the answer for all transport, or do hydrogen and other molecular fuels have a vital role to play?
Research support: If you or your organisation need support with techno‑economic assessment (TEA), life‑cycle assessment (LCA), or the development of robust net-zero strategies for industrial assets or clusters, I also work with partners on bespoke analysis and training. Book an initial consultation via my website: book.drhanak.com