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Existing carbon capture projects only capture a portion of total emissions

Existing blue hydrogen projects have been shown to capture around 50-90% of direct carbon emissions from natural gas production.1 While some carbon capture technologies can achieve capture rates at the higher end of this range under ideal conditions, the average performance often falls in the lower end or middle of this range.2 These estimates only include direct emissions from the steam methane reforming process and do not include emissions from fugitive methane or the electricity required to power carbon capture technologies.

The estimates included in this fact should only be viewed as a rough estimate, as it is still difficult to get an accurate and robust accounting of capture rates for carbon capture. As of 2024, there are very few operating blue hydrogen projects to use data from. Furthermore, the operators of carbon capture projects are not always transparent about their capture rates or allow third-party evaluations.3 The estimates in this fact will change as new blue hydrogen projects continue to be built and better data is made public.

Sources:​

Footnotes​

  1. Howarth, R. W., & Jacobson, M. Z. (2021). How green is blue hydrogen?. Energy Science & Engineering, 9(10), 1676-1687. https://scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ese3.956 ↩

  2. Ibid. ↩

  3. Ibid. ↩