Supply chain carbon penalties of U.S. carbon capture deployment: An EEIO-based assessment of net abatement performance

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is increasingly viewed as an essential option for decarbonizing emissions-intensive sectors, yet its net abatement value depends not only on captured emissions at host facilities but also on the economy-wide effects induced by deployment spending. Existing studies rarely integrate output propagation, supply-chain emissions added, emissions removed, and net performance indicators within a single U.S.-wide high-resolution framework. This study addresses that gap by developing an environmentally extended input-output model to quantify the economy-wide production impacts, supply chain carbon penalties, and net performance of CCS deployment in the United States. Annualized capital and operating expenditures for CCS were represented as an exogenous final-demand shock and mapped into the 402-sector USEEIO v2.5 framework, while emissions were evaluated using sector-specific capture fractions. For the modeled 90% capture scenario in electricity, lime and gypsum products, cement, and iron and steel, gross CO 2 removal reached 1.14 Gt, supply-chain activity added 0.08 Gt CO 2 , and net abatement remained substantial at 1.06 Gt CO 2 . The corresponding emission penalty ratio was around 67 kg CO 2 added per ton removed, and the net abatement cost was 73 $/tCO 2 . Scenario analysis showed that a 20% reduction in total CCS cost lowered the emission penalty ratio by 19% and the net abatement cost by 20%, whereas a 90% reduction in electricity-sector CO 2 intensity lowered the penalty ratio by 59% while producing only a marginal reduction in net abatement cost. These results indicate that CCS can deliver substantial net abatement, with cost reductions primarily improving economic performance and electricity-sector decarbonization providing greater leverage for reducing the upstream carbon penalty. Because the analysis uses a static national EEIO structure, it does not resolve regional heterogeneity, facility-level technological differences, or endogenous changes in economic and production relationships over time.