Please email info@globalco2initiative.org with a description of your piece and your availability. We will set up a meeting so that someone can answer your questions over the phone or a short zoom meeting.
Broadly speaking, we can provide systems wide, technology neutral, wholistic, unbiased expertise in the following areas:
- Demystifying Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU): Cutting through the Clutter
- The Federal Government and organizations like Breakthrough Energy Ventures are spending millions of dollars investing in CO2 capture and utilization. Why do they think it is so important?
- What can be made from captured CO2? What is already being made from captured CO2 and who are the companies leading the way in developing a low carbon economy?
- CCU, Sustainable Supply Chains, and the Economy
- In a world where supply chains are under threat from pandemics, foreign wars, etc., we need to plan for further future threats. Learn how CCU supports a sustainable, fossil-free economy and its implications for the global supply chain.
- Who stands to benefit & who stands to lose from this up and coming industry?
- CCU’s Potential Impact
- Fact-check: How realistic are various claims? What can and can’t CCU achieve? What is its role with regards to hard-to-abate sectors? What is its role, if any, in achieving carbon neutrality or even negative emissions?
- What is the best way to accurately assess the impacts to society, the environment, and the economy?
- Perceptions & Misconceptions: Navigating sometimes Conflicting Narratives
- What are valid criticisms of CCU and what are misconceptions?
- What does the media (and sometimes the “experts”) get wrong about it?
- Technology and Feasibility Rankings
- Which technologies are most likely to be both environmentally beneficial and economically feasible?
- Where does the US lead on CCU technology and where does it lag?
- Tech readiness: what CCU technologies could be scaled for global impact now?
- What are the obstacles to realizing full environmental and economic benefit and how can we overcome them?
- Sign up for the Global CO2 Initiative newsletter or student mailing list.
- Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube, or Threads.
- Join the Michigan Carbon Capture Club (formerly known as the Global CO2 Initiative Student Association) or follow them on Instagram (@umcarboncapture).
- Take the PerotJain Techlab Climate Change class.
- Fill out our student interest survey form. You may be a good fit for an upcoming opportunity!
- If you are interested in researching a particular topic, look through our faculty affiliates section to see who is already working in your area of interest. If you find a good fit, reach out to see if there are any openings.
- Sign up for the Global CO2 Initiative mailing list or newsletter.
- Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube, or Threads.
- If you are a student or an early career researcher and you are interested in researching a particular topic, look through our faculty affiliates section to see who is already working in your area of interest. If you find a good fit, reach out to see if there are any openings.
Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) is one of many sustainability technologies or actions that we can use to address climate change. CCU is essentially reusing or recycling the excess carbon that has already been released from carbon sources. It is the process of capturing excess carbon from the air, factory emissions, bodies of water, plants or other environmental sources and using captured carbon to make products.
The majority of products we use everyday are made with carbon feedstocks from a variety of sources. It is not feasible to de-carbonize everything. What we are striving to do is de-fossilize.
Please note that using captured carbon to make products does not include using it to pump more oil out of the ground (e.g. enhanced oil recovery).
Many things are currently being made with recycled captured carbon: cement and other construction materials, jet fuel, clothes and shoes, protein powder, perfumes, vodka, soap, and even crayons! These are just a sampling of items currently being made with captured CO2 and new products are regularly arriving on the market!
- CCU can help fight global warming by reducing the excess atmospheric, oceanic, and environmental CO2 and durably storing it in long-lived products.
- CCU can provide a non-fossil source of carbon for use in necessary products, thus reducing reliance on fossil sources. Not only are fossil carbon sources bad for the environment, but at some point, they will all be used up.
- Unlike most other climate change fighting tools, CCU provides revenue by enabling us to sell products. Revenue generation is often a great motivator for people to adopt new sustainable processes.
You can look through our website. The “Products from Pollution” page provides a basic overview of this topic.
Our YouTube channel also has a few good general videos:
Other organizations have also made some great videos introducing carbon capture and utilization.
- Take carbon out of the air and make useful things with it LanzaTech’s Carbon Recycling Technology Turns Waste into Saleable Products
- Carbon Capture and Utilisation: How to Capture CO₂
- Take carbon out of the air and make useful things with it
- Concrete Climate Ideas: Girl Scouts Talk Building Materials and Embodied Carbon
We also created a video game that is a fun way to learn the basic idea behind carbon capture and utilization.
It is best played on a pc rather than a mobile device.
There are also more technical videos on our youtube channel if you want more detailed information.
Utilizing captured carbon to make products is one specific way to address excess carbon dioxide. If you use that captured carbon to make long-lived products*, e.g. cement, then carbon capture and utilization is functionally equivalent to permanently removing carbon dioxide from the environment or “carbon dioxide removal” (CDR).
If you want to learn more about the current state of the carbon capture field, consider reading the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine report “Carbon Utilization Infrastructure, Markets, Research and Development,” which was co-authored by the GCI director.
If you want to learn more about CDR in general, consider reading the CDR Primer.
*We refer to long-lived products made with captured carbon as “Track 1” products. “Track 2” products, on the other hand, are products that do not last as long, e.g. beer or clothes. The carbon in Track 2 products re-enter the environment sooner, and can be captured again, resulting in a circular carbon economy. Please see our Market Study for a more detailed explanation of Track 1 and Track 2.
Please take a look at our Academic Affiliates page to find a list of potential research / project collaborator, topic expert or consultant.
We would love to be able to offer free assistance to everyone who reaches out to discuss their invention, process, or product. Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to do so. We suggest you apply to the AirMiner’s Slack Community to look for collaborators and advisors. You could also take a look at the following organizations’ websites for additional assistance: the OpenAir Collective, the Direct Air Capture Coalition, CO2 Value Europe, Circular Carbon Network, or the Carbon to Value (C2V) Initiative.
We are open to discussing possible funded work in support of your project.
Unfortunately, we do not provide funding. However, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation often have funding or grant opportunities for domestic applicants, as do the governments of many other countries.
We would love to be able to assist everyone who reaches out to us about grant proposals and other projects. Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to do so. You are welcome to reach out to us to see if your proposal or project aligns with our current capacity and goals. We are open to discuss collaborations in funded projects.
Depending on your needs, we may be able to offer you a little guidance, or refer you elsewhere. However, we are not able to take on unpaid work to conduct LCAs and TEAs.
Please first take a look at our assessment resources (e.g. on our YouTube channel, on our companion website, AssessCCUS, and in the free resources section of our website.).
If you continue to have questions, please send us a very detailed email describing the nature of your questions.
If you have a more involved issue or wish to utilize our paid assessment services, please email us at info@globalco2initiative.org.
We have not created such a guide ourselves. However, we do provide a list of terminology glossaries created by other organizations on our companion website, AssessCCUS.
There are three main ways in which the Global CO2 Initiative has impacted the carbon capture and utilization field: 1) We provide guidance for life cycle and techno-economic assessments for critical decision making, 2) We have quantified the market opportunities with influential studies, and 3.) We offer unique learning and research opportunities.
1. Globally harmonized life cycle and techno-economic assessment guidelines
We have convened a team of international experts and have created and published a comprehensive set of guidance documents to specify critical details for life cycle and techno-economic assessments for carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS).
In collaboration with several National Laboratories and the U.S. Department of Energy we are holding annual workshops to advance harmonizing CCUS assessments to ensure rigor and transparency. Furthermore, in order to further harmonizing CCU life cycle analyses and techno-economic analysis, we organize an annual carbon capture and utilization workshop, with presenters from Xprize, National Wildlife Federation, Argonne National Labs, U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, German Institute for Standardization, and Carbon180.This and a following study in 2022 informed the entire emerging field of carbon dioxide capture and utilization (CCU).
Slides from the 2024 and 2023 workshops.
2) Quantified market opportunities with influential market studies
The Global CO2 Initiative was launched in 2016 and presented a comprehensive market study and assessment of the opportunities for CO2 conversion into products at a time when few looked into whether this could be a significant contribution to address climate change, a key path to secure access to carbon-based products, and a commercially successful opportunity.
This and a following study in 2022 informed the entire emerging field of carbon dioxide capture and utilization (CCU).
The United States Congress mandated the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) to create a study of carbon utilization infrastructure, markets, and research and development. This study yielded two reports, both of which were co-authored by the Director of the Global CO2 Initiative (GCI). The federal government requested the first report be expedited as they considered the information critical to their infrastructure investment decisions of late summer 2022.
Additionally, the GCI has also provided guidance to entities such as the World Economic Forum, and the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers, who commissioned a GCI team to investigate carbon offsets and removal opportunities in the region.
Our market studies and other free resources have provided information that has been prominently used in two reports (2022, 2024) by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Our reports, papers, and other information materials have been downloaded or watched (on our YouTube channel) tens of thousands of times.
3. Educated of students and others
Students who we have trained have gone on to work for government agencies (U.S. Department of Energy, National Institute of Standards and Technology), start ups (Twelve, Carbon Solutions), established companies (McKinsey, Black & Veatch, Bechtel, General Motors), and other organizations (EPRI, Rocky Mountain Institute).
We have convened a team of international experts and have created and published a comprehensive set of guidance documents to specify critical details for life cycle and techno-economic assessments for carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS).
In collaboration with several National Laboratories and the U.S. Department of Energy we are holding annual workshops to advance harmonizing CCUS assessments to ensure rigor and transparency. Furthermore, in order to further harmonizing CCU life cycle analyses and techno-economic analysis, we organize an annual carbon capture and utilization workshop, with presenters from Xprize, National Wildlife Federation, Argonne National Labs, U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, German Institute for Standardization, and Carbon180.
We have created a highly sought after yearlong course with our Center for Entrepreneurship, Perot Jain Techlab Climate Change. Multidisciplinary student teams work on projects together with emerging companies.
Because we conduct LCAs and TEAs for companies, we can also employ students to help with these assessment projects, providing them with assessment methodology training and the opportunity for real time, concrete impactful work.
Members of the GCI team have been featured or quoted in dozens of news sources including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, the Guardian, Voice of America, Washington Post, PBS Newshour, and the Los Angeles Times.
We receive funding from a variety of philanthropic, corporate, university and federal funding sources. If you would like to donate, please click here.