The CO2 Transportation Challenge

A national network of CO2 and biomass transportation infrastructure, spanning pipelines to rail routes, will be needed to support the permanent removal of atmospheric CO2. Can the network be economically built?

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In December the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory published Roads to Removal: Options for Carbon Dioxide Removal in the United States, which explores pathways to permanently remove carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. The report provides a granular, county-by-county look at the potential for atmospheric carbon to be captured and stored across the U.S., and highlights the fact that the best places for carbon to be captured, and stored, are frequently not the same.

On the podcast, two report authors explore the need to develop a nationwide, multi-modal transportation network to move carbon dioxide and a related climate commodity, biomass, at scale, and potentially over great distances, to permanent geologic storage sites.

Pete Psarras is a research assistant professor in chemical and biomedical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Hélène Pilorgé is a research associate whose work focuses on carbon management.

The two explore the geography of carbon removal and storage, the challenging logistics of a future, multi-modal carbon transportation network, and how that network might be most economically built.

Pete Psarras is a research assistant professor in chemical and biomedical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a researcher with the University of Pennsylvania’s Clean Energy Conversions Laboratory.

Hélène Pilorgé is a research associate with the University of Pennsylvania’s Clean Energy Conversions Laboratory.

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Energy Policy Now is produced by The Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For all things energy policy, visit kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu

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