Skip to main content
European Commission
Knowledge4Policy (K4P)

Carbon capture, utilisation and storage

  • Glossary item | Last updated: 19 Mar 2025
Bioeconomy Knowledge Centre
The term CCUS actually comprises a chain of technologies, with each of the steps (capture, transport, utilization and/or storage) being independent from the other ones and containing several sub-technology choices. The different steps involved in CCUS chains are:
  • Capture involves the extraction of CO2 emissions from various sources (process, fossil fuels or biogenic when referring to industrial and energy production facilities and air when referring to direct air capture).
  • Transport involves the movement of captured CO2 from the capture sites to the storage or utilisation locations. Typically, compression and liquefaction of the captured CO2 are considered within the transportation step.
  • The utilisation step (one of the two alternative last steps of the chain) involves converting captured CO2 into valuable products, for example using it as feedstock for fuels, chemicals or construction materials.
  • The alternative last step of the chain is permanent storage in onshore and offshore underground geological formations.
 
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Martinez Castilla, G., Tumara, D., Mountraki, A., Letout, S., Jaxa-Rozen, M., Schmitz, A., Ince, E. and Georgakaki, A., Clean Energy Technology Observatory: Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage in the European Union - 2024 Status Report on Technology Development, Trends, Value Chains and Markets, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2024, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/0287566, JRC139285
 
Source category: EC Technical Documents
More information and links
Reference description

EU, 2024

Abbreviation
CCUS
Originally Published | Last Updated

18 Mar 2025 | 19 Mar 2025

Related organisation(s)JRC - Joint Research CentreEC - European Commission
Knowledge service | MetadataBioeconomy Knowledge Centre
Digital Europa Thesaurus (DET)carbon capture and storagereduction of gas emissions
Related reading
VISUALISATION | 03 Nov 2026
Scenario of reduction of nutrient emissions to air
Dashboard for visualization of the comparison of Nitrogen atmospheric deposition estimated by the model EMEP. Current: Nitrogen atmospheric deposition estimated for year 2015 Scenario: estimated considering emission...
VISUALISATION | 03 Nov 2026
Total NH3 emissions by IPCC2006 sector
Dashboard for visualization of total NH3 emissions by IPCC sector (2006) data. The interactive map shows Total NH3 emissions by country [Gg]. The barchart displays the comparison...
More
Privacy statements, terms and conditions.
You will be directed to the EU Login website where you can login/register as a user. Once connected, your credentials (First name, last name, username, email) will be registered in Knowledge4policy as part of your profile, which will allow you to get involved in all Knowledge4policy communities (help is available).
You are leaving EUROPA

You are about to navigate to an external website. Please note that we are not responsible for its content.