Prospects for achieving a net-zero greenhouse gas economy by 2050 in the U.S. are analyzed to help inform action and decision making at the state and local levels.

The analysis — Roads to Removal: Options for Carbon Dioxide Removal in the United States — evaluates carbon dioxide (CO₂) removal (CDR) feasibility and capacity, ecological effects, infrastructure and costs nationwide with a focus on land-based CDR methods that could be expected to remove at least 10 million tons of CO₂ equivalents per year.

The techno-economic feasibility of available carbon dioxide removal techniques is analyzed. Source: U.S. Department of Energy

Removing 1 billion metric tons of CO₂ per year will cost roughly $130 billion annually in 2050, or about 0.5% of current GDP, by use of currently available technologies. Attaining this target will require increasing the uptake of carbon in forests and agricultural lands, converting waste biomass into fuels and CO₂, and using purpose-built machines to remove CO₂ directly from the air. Deployment of these lowest-cost approaches would generate more than 440,000 long-term jobs and can be achieved using renewable energy sources, currently available land and below ground geologic storage.

Significant investments in direct air capture with geologic storage (DACS) will be warranted. The CO₂ captured via biomass-based removal and storage or DACS will need to be durably stored below ground. More than half of the land area in U.S. is judged to have the potential for safe CO₂ geological storage.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin, North Carolina State University, University of California at Berkeley, Colorado State University, Indiana University, Yale University, University of New Hampshire, Iowa State University, Michigan State University and University of Pennsylvania contributed to this study.