The Center for Strategic and International Studies has published a warning that the United States risks losing its advantage in carbon capture, a technology central to industrial decarbonization and to emissions reduction at hard-to-abate facilities.

The report, issued by the Washington-based think tank and surfaced through news aggregation on the CSIS feed, frames the US position in carbon capture utilization and storage as a leading but perishable asset. CSIS argues the country's current edge, built on existing pipeline infrastructure, geologic storage capacity and a policy framework anchored by the federal 45Q tax credit, is not guaranteed to persist.

The headline claim is blunt: the advantage can be lost. That framing matters for the industrial sectors that would deploy capture equipment, including ethanol plants, cement kilns, steel mills and natural gas processing, all of which treat CO2 removal as a compliance and cost question rather than a branding exercise.

What is at stake for the US industrial base?

Carbon capture is not an environmental accessory for these industries. It is infrastructure. Ethanol producers, for example, represent some of the most advanced near-term capture candidates in the country because their process streams carry concentrated CO2. Gas processing plants have captured CO2 for decades, largely for use in enhanced oil recovery.

The CSIS warning implies that policy drift, permitting delays or underinvestment in transport and storage capacity could cede ground to competitors. Other jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, Norway, Canada and the Gulf states, have launched capture clusters backed by direct state funding models that the US does not replicate.

The report's core concern is competitive position. If capture projects stall in the United States while proceeding elsewhere, equipment manufacturing, storage expertise and project development capacity migrate. First-mover scale in this sector compounds, and losing it is difficult to reverse.

Why does the 45Q framework matter?

The US approach relies heavily on the section 45Q tax credit, which pays operators per tonne of CO2 captured and either stored or utilized. Congress raised the credit's value and lowered its eligibility thresholds in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, a change widely credited with reviving project pipelines across the Midwest and Gulf Coast.

Developers have responded with announced capture ventures tied to ethanol, ammonia, hydrogen and power generation. Announced capacity, however, is not built capacity. Projects still require Class VI injection permits from the Environmental Protection Agency for geologic storage, and permitting timelines have become the choke point most frequently cited by developers.

The CSIS assessment lands in a policy environment where tax credit support faces political uncertainty. The think tank's warning reads as a direct argument to lawmakers: the existing incentive framework is the foundation of the US advantage, and erosion of that framework carries competitive consequences.

What decides what happens next?

The milestone to watch is federal policy continuity. Any legislative change to 45Q values or eligibility, plus the pace of EPA Class VI permit issuance and state-level primacy decisions, will determine whether announced capture projects reach final investment decision.

The CSIS report adds a geopolitical dimension to what has largely been a domestic infrastructure debate. Its argument is that capture capacity is a strategic asset, and that the window for the United States to consolidate its lead is finite.