Products made with carbon dioxide could play a valuable role in a net-zero future, but expanding their market reach will require a wide array of policy changes, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The report, released this month and mandated by Congress in the Energy Act of 2020, provides a big picture look at the potential market opportunities for carbon utilization — where CO2 is embedded into products. It finds that the U.S. could lock captured or removed CO2 into some durable products, like concrete, as part of a broader effort to cut planet-warming emissions and meet the Biden administration’s goal of a net-zero emission economy by 2050.
While the world should electrify as much of the economy as possible, “we can’t talk about decarbonization for many aspects of civilization — namely the materials that we use, the food that we eat, the chemicals that we use, the pharmaceuticals that we need,” said Emily Carter, chair of the committee that wrote the report and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University.
Carbon utilization can help make the products the world will continue to need, she said.
