New Report: Deploying Engineered Carbon Removal In California

Law & policy options to boost demonstration projects + free webinar on January 27th

Berkeley/UCLA Law report discusses policy solutions to boost engineered carbon removal technologies. Register for a free webinar on Wednesday, January 27th at 10am with an expert panel to hear about the top findings.

California has enacted ambitious climate goals, including a statewide carbon neutrality target by 2045. While much of the required greenhouse gas reductions will come from clean technology and emission reduction programs, meeting these targets will necessitate new methods of actively removing carbon from the atmosphere and capturing difficult-to-mitigate industrial facility emissions, including via technologies broadly known as engineered carbon removal.

These processes include carbon capture and sequestration of industrial facility emissions, biomass energy production with carbon capture, and direct air capture of atmospheric carbon. They can complement traditional emission reduction and nature-based solutions but are mostly still in the early development stages. Proponents of these projects face significant questions about carbon removal capacity, duration of sequestration, optimal locations, support infrastructure, and long-term financing.

Capturing Opportunity: Law and Policy Solutions to Accelerate Engineered Carbon Removal in California offers a suite of policy innovations and proposals to address these challenges, including:

• Establishing a statewide single point of contact for engineered carbon removal project incentives, permitting, and oversight.
• Identifying project and infrastructure corridors best suited for new development to conduct pre-permitting environmental, land use, and community review.
• Developing environmental review guidelines specific to carbon removal projects.
• Considering extension of and adjustment to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard‘s carbon capture protocol to support project financing.

The report is sponsored by Bank of America and informed by an expert stakeholder convening facilitated by the law schools.

To discuss the report’s findings and next steps for engineered carbon removal in California, Berkeley and UCLA Law will host a free webinar on Wednesday, January 27th from 10-11am PT with an expert panel, including:

• Uduak-Joe Ntuk, California ​State Oil and Gas Supervisor, California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM)
• Anne Canavati, Research Analyst, Energy Futures Initiative
• Keith Pronske, President and Chief Executive Officer, Clean Energy Systems

You can RSVP for the webinar here.

Download the report here.

Engineered carbon removal