New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Strength in numbers: can industrial clusters cut carbon capture costs?
13/10/2026
8 min read
Feature
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has always had an economics problem. Building a dedicated pipeline, compressor station and injection infrastructure for a single industrial emitter necessitates significant investment, often requiring substantial public support. The cluster model offers a way to reduce this by concentrating emitters geographically, connecting them to shared transport and storage infrastructure, and spreading the cost across multiple projects, writes Charlie Bush.
CCS is again becoming a strategic priority across Europe, particularly for hard-to-abate industries such as cement, steel and chemicals. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that global carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) deployment needs to accelerate dramatically this decade, with storage development and long project lead times among the key constraints.
The question is therefore whether clusters can solve enough of the industry’s coordination and financing problems to make large-scale deployment bankable.
Shared infrastructure, but limited savings
The theoretical case for clustering is well-established. A shared pipeline network can transport larger volumes of CO2 than multiple dedicated pipelines, potentially reducing the cost per tonne. Storage infrastructure can similarly be shared across multiple emitters, improving utilisation of wells, compression and receiving facilities.