What is Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS)? What is the potential role of CCUS in tackling climate change?
Approach · directive: “what”
What it asks · Define CCUS and its three links, then weigh its potential and limits in climate mitigation, especially for India’s hard-to-abate industries.
The question has 2 parts — answer each
- Define CCUS — its capture, utilisation and storage links
- Explain the potential role of CCUS in tackling climate change, with its limits
Open with · CCUS captures carbon dioxide from large point sources such as power, steel and cement plants, and either uses it in products or stores it permanently deep underground.
Cover
- Capture: pre-combustion, post-combustion (solvents), oxy-fuel; direct air capture and bioenergy with CCS can even give net-negative emissions.
- Utilisation: urea, methanol, synthetic fuels, polymers, building materials, enhanced oil recovery. Storage: saline aquifers, depleted oil and gas fields, basalt.
- Climate role: cuts emissions in hard-to-abate sectors — cement process emissions, steel, fertilisers, refineries — where renewables alone cannot.
- For India: coal will stay in the energy mix for decades; CCUS lets India use it while moving towards net zero by 2070.
- Co-benefits: a circular carbon economy, new industries and jobs, and lower import bills when CO2 becomes feedstock.
- Limits: high cost and energy penalty, leakage risk and monitoring, no CO2 pipelines, low carbon price; risk of prolonging fossil lock-in.
- Enablers: carbon credit trading scheme, hub-and-cluster model in industrial belts, mapping of storage sites, public funding for early projects.
Close with · CCUS complements, not replaces, renewables and efficiency — it is essential for residual industrial emissions if costs fall and storage is proven safe.
Add value (verified)
- NITI Aayog’s 2022 study positions CCUS as the route to deep decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors. PIB, NITI Aayog — Study report on CCUS Policy Framework and its Deployment Mechanism in India (29 November 2022) ↗“The report explores the importance of Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage as an emission reduction strategy to achieve deep decarbonization from the hard-to-abate sectors.”
- The Union Budget 2026-27 announced ₹20,000 crore over five years for CCUS technologies. PIB, Ministry of Finance — Highlights of Union Budget 2026-27 (1 February 2026) ↗“An outlay of ₹20,000 crore over the next 5 years, announced for Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technologies.”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2025, GS Paper III — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer · 224 words (UPSC limit 150) · Minimalist IAS
CCUS captures carbon dioxide from large point sources such as power, steel and cement plants and either uses it in products or stores it permanently deep underground.
What CCUS is
- Capture: pre-combustion, post-combustion and oxy-fuel routes; direct air capture and bioenergy with CCS can even deliver net-negative emissions.
- Utilisation: urea, methanol, synthetic fuels, polymers, building materials and enhanced oil recovery.
- Storage: saline aquifers, depleted oil and gas fields and basalt formations.
Potential role in tackling climate change
- Hard-to-abate sectors: cuts process emissions in cement, steel, fertilisers and refineries, where renewables alone cannot reach.
- For India: coal will stay in the energy mix for decades; CCUS lets it be used while moving towards net zero by 2070 — NITI Aayog's 2022 study framed CCUS as the route to deep decarbonisation of such sectors.
- Co-benefits: a circular carbon economy, new industries and lower import bills when CO2 becomes feedstock.
- Limits: high cost and energy penalty, leakage risk, no CO2 pipelines, a low carbon price and the danger of prolonging fossil lock-in.
- Enablers: the carbon credit trading scheme, hub-and-cluster projects in industrial belts, mapping of storage sites and public funding for early projects (since then, the Union Budget 2026-27 announced ₹20,000 crore over five years).
CCUS complements, not replaces, renewables and efficiency: it is essential for residual industrial emissions, provided costs fall and storage is proven safe.
Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.