The hardest part of carbon capture today is not finding bold announcements. It is working out which projects are actually being built, what they capture, and where the CO₂ goes.
Over the course of a few years, the sector has transitioned from early pilots to include gas plants, cement kilns, pulp mills, waste-to-energy facilities, and direct air capture hubs.
Projects that are now capable of handling real flue gas and real storage formations.
For operators, investors, and regulators, the question is no longer whether carbon capture will play a role in net-zero plans. The question is which concrete projects demonstrate their practical application across sectors and regions.
CCS project capacity growth since 2024
The Global CCS Institute’s 2024 assessment reported 628 projects across all stages of development, with a combined capture capacity of about 416 million tons of CO₂ per year. Approximately 50 commercial facilities were operating at the time, with enough projects under construction to double the installed capture capacity once they came online.
By late 2025, the Institute reports that the number of operating CCS facilities has risen to 77. These plants can store approximately 64 million tons of CO₂ per year, with an additional 44 million tons under construction.
The global DAC capacity is forecasted to rise around 569,000 tons in 2025, aided by the commissioning of the first large commercial plants in Iceland and the United States.
These figures do not guarantee that every project will deliver as planned, yet they show a clear shift. Carbon capture is becoming an installed industrial capability rather than a purely experimental option.
Why carbon capture projects matter
Here are some of the key reasons that make carbon capture projects essential:
- Addresses process emissions: Cement, steel, ammonia, refining, waste-to-energy, and some biomass pathways release CO₂ through chemical processes or the use of feedstocks. Capture units at these sites remove streams that would otherwise have very few options.
- Creates shared transport and storage systems: Pipelines, shipping routes, and storage hubs developed for one or two anchor projects can later serve additional emitters in the same region.
- Provides technical and regulatory reference points: Real facilities generate data on capture performance, integration with existing plants, monitoring and verification, and permitting paths that can be reused elsewhere.
- Tests business models for capture, transport, and storage: Some projects inject CO₂ into deep saline formations. In contrast, others inject it into former petroleum reservoirs for enhanced oil recovery or for utilization in various sectors, including e-fuels, horticulture, and food and beverage markets. Each route has different contracts, risks, and partners.
Exploring the top 10 (+1) carbon capture projects in 2025
Here, we examine the top 10 (+1) carbon capture projects of 2025 and showcase how they are being deployed to reduce emissions.
Northern Lights is the +1 because, although it does not capture CO₂ itself, it is one of the first shared CO₂ transport and storage networks serving multiple industrial sites.
Blue Spruce Dry Piney Helium CO₂ Sequestration – Wyoming, US
Captures up to 4.5 million tons of CO₂ per year using cryogenic separation. CO₂ is injected on-site into the Madison and Bighorn formations through Class II wells.
Donaldsonville CCS Facility – Louisiana, US
Captures about 2 million tons of CO₂ per year from ammonia production. The CO₂ is sent through EnLink’s pipeline to ExxonMobil’s storage hub for EOR and long-term storage.
Ashdown Pulp Mill Domtar CCS – Arkansas, US.
Plans to capture up to 1.5 million tons of biogenic CO₂ per year using Svante’s solid-sorbent system. Captured CO₂ is intended for permanent storage.
Northern Lights T&S Phase I – Øygarden, Norway
Receives CO₂ from multiple emitters and stores about 1.5 million tons per year in a saline aquifer under the North Sea. Capacity will expand to roughly 5 million tons per year.
Mosusol netCO₂ Project – near Barcelona, Spain
Captures about 1 million tons of CO₂ per year from cement production. Enagás manages CO₂ transport to storage and use pathways.
Norcem Brevik Cement Plant CCS – Brevik, Norway
Captures more than 400,000 tons of CO₂ per year using an advanced solvent system. CO₂ is shipped offshore for storage in former petroleum reservoirs.
La Robla Green Project – León, Spain
Captures roughly 400,000 tons of biogenic CO₂ per year from a biomass plant using the KM CDR Process. Half is converted to e-methanol, and the rest is stored.
Twence Hengelo WtE CCUS – Hengelo, Netherlands
Captures up to 100,000 tons of CO₂ per year from waste-to-energy flue gas using a modular Just Catch unit. CO₂ is supplied to horticulture and food and beverage users.
Conestoga Bonanza BioEnergy CCS – Kansas, US
Captures and stores more than 150,000 tons of CO₂ per year at an ethanol facility. Infrastructure supports both EOR use and permanent geological storage.
Wyoming Integrated Test Center Membrane Pilot – Wyoming, US
Captures over 150 tons of CO₂ per day from a 20 MW flue gas slipstream using MTR’s membranes. Results support a potential 3-million-tonne-per-year scale-up.
Deep Sky Alpha Facility DAC – Alberta, Canada
Cross-technology DAC site targeting about 3,000 tons of CO₂ per year, with an added 1,500-tonne GE Vernova unit. CO₂ is routed to deep saline storage in Alberta.
How these projects clarify the CCUS landscape
For operators and project teams, these projects provide a concrete sense of the capture capacities, technology mixes, and storage strategies that are already underway.
For investors and policymakers, they indicate which sectors are committing capital and where shared infrastructure is starting to emerge.
PreScouter features a broader CCUS project database that tracks more than a thousand capture projects worldwide, including their technologies, sectors, partners, and storage routes.
Used together, the database and the examples above help turn a crowded stream of announcements into a structured view of where carbon capture is being built and how it works in practice.
