What happens to CO₂ after capture: utilisation pathways and their energy cost
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: A capture system is only as useful as the destination of its output. This note classifies the destinations for captured CO2 — geological storage, mineralisation, direct use and conversion to chemicals or fuels — and applies a single governing metric to conversion: energy consumed per unit of product divided by the energy content of that product. Because CO2 is the fully oxidised end state of carbon, that ratio exceeds one for any fuel, so CO2-to-fuel is an energy carrier rather than an energy source. The conditions under which conversion is nonetheless worthwhile are identified, the case for mineralisation in distributed urban capture is made, and the elements of a checkable utilisation claim are listed. An earlier version of this note was published on the author's blog: https://hrohera27.blogspot.com/2026/09/what-happens-to-co2-after-you-capture.html Declarations Competing interests. The author is the founder and a Director of Rohera Healthcare & Technology Pvt. Ltd. (bioelectric medical devices) and Rohera Emerging Energies Pvt. Ltd. (energy storage) and a named inventor on patent families in those fields. He holds no patent, commercial interest or funding relationship in carbon capture, utilisation or storage, and this note makes no claim about any product of his own. Funding. Self-funded. This work received no external, grant, institutional or third-party funding; the costs were borne by the author and his companies. Self-funding is declared here because it is itself a competing interest: no external sponsor reviewed, constrained or independently verified this work. This declarations block was added on 18 September 2026 as a metadata edit. The deposited file and the substance of the record are unchanged, and the DOI is unchanged.
Author: Rohera, Hemant K.
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7212259696
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