The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will convene an ad hoc committee to conduct a comprehensive assessment of future research and development needs for carbon utilization. In particular, it will focus on the research and development needed for commercialization of technologies that can transform carbon waste streams into products such as chemicals, fuels, polymers, and/or aggregates at a reasonable cost and a net lifecycle reduction of greenhouse (GHG) emissions to the atmosphere. The committee will write a report that will:
1. Assess the global status and progress of carbon utilization technologies (both chemical and biological) in practice today that utilize waste carbon (including carbon dioxide, methane, and biogas ) from power generation, bio-fuels production, and other industrial processes.
2. Identify emerging technologies and approaches for carbon utilization that show promise for scale-up, demonstration, deployment and commercialization.
3. Analyze the factors associated with making technologies viable at a commercial scale, including carbon waste stream availability, economics, market capacity, energy and lifecycle requirements, scale, and other factors.
4. Develop a set of criteria to assess the extent to which the utilization technology addresses the factors identified in Task (3) and apply the criteria to technologies identified in Task (2).
5. Assess the major technical challenges associated with increasing the commercial viability of carbon reuse technologies, and identify the research and development questions that will address those challenges.
6. Assess current research efforts, including basic, applied, engineering and computational, that are addressing these challenges and identify gaps in the current research portfolio.
7. Develop a comprehensive research agenda that addresses both long- and short-term research needs and opportunities.
The report will provide guidance to research sponsors, as well as research communities in academia and industry regarding key challenges needed to advance the science and engineering required to enable carbon utilization at a commercial scale. The report will not include recommendations related to funding, government organization, or policy issues.