2024–2022 GCCC Collaborates on National Assessment: The Roads to Removal Report

Map depicting the potential CO<sub>2</sub> storage window thickness — Map depicting the potential carbon dioxide storage window thickness, in km, for sedimentary rocks within the subsurface of the United States. Thicker sedimentary intervals are depicted in deeper blue shades, while areas with no storage window are represented in a light brown color (e.g., these areas either have no permeable sedimentary rocks at proper storage depths, or in many areas sedimentary rocks are not present due to the presence of basement rocks). This map highlights new prospective storage areas outside major basins while also identifying regions, such as parts of the western U.S. and Alaska, that remain unsuitable due to the absence of sedimentary rocks at appropriate depths.

Background

In 2022–2024, 68 scientists, from 13 institutions across the United States, collaborated on a “national-scale analysis of carbon dioxide (CO₂) removal that would be required to achieve a net-zero greenhouse gas economy in the United States by 2050,” which was led by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This collaboration produced the Roads to Removal (R2R) report that notably outlines regionally specific opportunities to address the pressing issue of climate change and the urgent need to remove CO₂ gas from the atmosphere with the intent of storing this greenhouse gas underground (or subsurface) on a gigaton scale. As carbon storage experts, Gulf Coast Carbon Center (GCCC) scientists Sue Hovorka, Alex Bump, and Ramón Gil-Egui provided the technical content for, “Chapter 4. Project-Based Geologic CO₂ Storage and Cost Assessment.”

As part of this project, and while also being part of The University of Texas at Austin, GCCC Researchers had a Jackson School of Geosciences, Energy and Earth Resources graduate student Edna Rodriguez Calzado join the team. While GCCC Researchers provided technical content for the report, Ms. Rodriguez Calzado helped build GIS analyses of CO₂-storage options and addressed carbon storage-window thicknesses across the United States. In 2023, with special thanks to advisors Sue Hovorka and Alex Bump, Ms. Rodriguez Calzado completed a M.S. degree entitled, “Estimating CO₂ Storage Capacity, Injectivity, and Storage Costs for Large-scale CCS Deployment & CO₂ Removal Goals.”

Video Coverage

In the News

New Report Explores Opportunities for CO₂ Removal Across the USA

December 11, 2023 // Jackson School of Geosciences

New analysis outlines national opportunities to remove CO₂ at the gigaton scale

December 11, 2023 // Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Select Publications & Fact Sheets

Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Sara Kuebbing, Allegra C. Mayer, Hovorka, S. D., Hélène Pilorgé, Sarah E. Baker, Simon H. Pang, Corinne D. Scown, Kimberly K. Mayfield, Andrew A. Wong, Roger D. Aines, Hamed Ziad Ammar, Alvin Aui, Mark Ashton, Bruno Basso, Mikel Bradford, Alexander P. Bump, Ingrid Busch, Edna Rodriguez Calzado, Jackson W. Chirigotis, Nicolas Clauser, Sinead Crotty, Nicholas Dahl, Tao Dai, Mark Ducey, Jerome Dumortier, Nathan C. Ellebracht, Ramon Gil-Egui, Ames Fowler, Katerina Georgiou, Diamantoula Giannopolous, Hannah M. Goldstein, Thomas Harris, Dermot Hayes, Chad Hellwinckel, Alina Ho, Mu Hong, Susan Hovorka, Elwin Hunter-Sellars, Whitney Kirkendall, Matthew Langholtz, Mark Layer, Ian Lee, Reid Lewis, Wengin Li, Weier Liu, Jimena Terrazas Lozano, Abby Lunstrum, Wilson McNeil, Peter Nico, Anastasia O'Rourke, K. Paustian, George Peridas, Maxwell Pisciotta, Lydia Price, Peter Psarras, G. Phillip Robertson, William Joe Sagues, Daniel L. Sanchez, Briana Mordick Schmidt, Eric W. Slessarev, Noah Sokol, Alexander J. Stanley, Amy Swan, Crystal Toureene, Mark Mba Wright, Yuan Yao, Bingquan Zhang, and Yao Zhang, 2023, Roads to Removal: Options for Carbon Dioxide Removal in the United States: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, no. LLNL-TR-852901; 1080440, 559 p.

CO₂Transport & Geologic Storage Fact Sheet, click here or download the document here.

M.S. Student Products

Rodriguez Calzado, E., Bump, A., and Hovorka, S. D., 2024, Estimating CO₂ Storage Capacity, Injectivity, and Storage Costs for Large Scale CCS Deployment & Carbon Dioxide Removal Goals: Social Science Research Network, GHGT-17 conference proceedings, 11 p., http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5022393.

Rodriguez Calzado, E., 2023, Estimating Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) Storage Capacity, Injectivity, and Storage Costs for Large-scale CCS Deployment & CO₂ Removal Goals: M.S., Energy and Earth Resources, The University of Texas at Austin, 2023, 122 p. Get access here.

Rodriguez Calzado, E., Hovorka, S.D., and Bump, A., 2022, Mapping CO₂ Injectivity Potential Within Available CO₂ Underground Storage Window in Sedimentary Rocks Across the United States Abstract B25F-1610 [poster] presented at 2022 AGU Fall Meeting, 12-16th Dec.

Last updated: March 19, 2025