Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) typically involves three key stages: carbon capture, transport, and storage. In the capture stage, an industrial facility separates carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from the rest of the flue gas. These captured emissions are then transported to a storage site, where the CO₂ is injected into geological underground formations. Because of this process, CCS is often presented as a CO₂ mitigation technology and plays an important role in decarbonization scenarios, as highlighted in recent reports from the IPCC and the IEA.

While this formal definition is instructive, it doesn’t fully reflect the diversity of technologies that fall under the CCS umbrella  as illustrated in Figure 1 below. Let’s break these technologies down with a brief historical perspective.

In the early 1970s in the United States, the first integrated projects combining CO2 capture, transport, and underground storage began to emerge. At the time, the goal wasn’t to reduce emissions, but to inject CO2 into oil fields to boost extraction. This process is known as CO2 flooding and falls within a broader suite of techniques aimed at extracting more oil, collectively known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR, or sometimes CCS-EOR).

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