Gigaton Challenges, Gigaton Solutions: 3 Takeaways from CERAWeek 2025

Although the executive conference at this year’s CERAWeek largely pivoted to focus on increasing energy availability and affordability, the Agora sessions continued its focus on sustainability and the clean technologies needed to decarbonize the energy industry.

On Monday I spoke on a panel, “Which Technologies Are Ready for Gigaton Scale?” that addressed that exact topic. Here are three of my takeaways from that discussion and the other meetings I attended throughout the week:

The Short Answer is “All of the Above”

One thing my co-panelists and I quickly agreed on was that there’s no single “silver bullet” solution available today that will decarbonize every industry and sector. Instead, we advocated for an "all of the above” approach including, but not limited to:

• CCUS
• Enhanced geothermal power
• Long-duration energy storage
• Hydrogen (all colors, including white hydrogen)
• Advanced renewables
• Energy efficiency solutions

There are several reasons this approach is important. First, not every solution will work in every region. Having an “all of the above” suite of solutions means you can build what makes sense for each region. I emphasized, "it's not only a gigaton challenge-but also gigawatt-gigabyte challenge."

Second, these technologies are entering the market and growing at different speed and scale. Today, CCUS is the most commercially viable solution above, but that doesn’t mean we should stop there. Projects that take longer to get off the ground are still worth investing in and could have even bigger long-term dividends.

There’s More Than One Way to Finance a Project

While many U.S. project developers are in a holding period to see what happens with federal policies and incentives such as the Inflation Reduction Act, I think that taking a “wait and see” approach can be a mistake.

That’s because we’ve already proven we can finance and build projects without these policies. The key to project viability isn’t always a tax credit – it’s more about ensuring a strong foundation of customer demand and partnership between experienced providers.

During the panel, I shared two examples of projects Mitsubishi Heavy Industries supported that predate many of today’s policies and incentives:

Less than 40 miles from CERAWeek sits the Petra Nova Carbon Capture Facility, the largest post-combustion carbon capture project in the world. Construction started in 2014 and commercial operations began in 2017 – long before the IRA expanded the 45Q. Instead, the project was financed through agreements between multiple partner companies and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Across the southwest in Delta, Utah, sits the Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) Hydrogen Hub, a joint venture between Mitsubishi Power Americas and Chevron which reached FID in June 2022, before the IRA passed.

These first-of-a-kind, large-scale projects didn’t involve waiting for perfect conditions—they involved companies willing to be first-movers, take risks, and get creative with funding from a mix of public and private sources.

The Case for Optimism

When I think about the mindset required to tackle these daunting industry challenges, it comes down to something my co-panelist Ramamoorthy Ramesh said: “I’m an eternal optimist. I believe together, we’ll solve these problems.”

I believe that, too. Between the startups bringing innovative new technologies to reality each year, the larger companies like MHI with the infrastructure to scale technology from 1 to 100, and the next generation of engineers with bold ideas and drive to decarbonize, I know we have the talent and tools to make this a reality. I wrapped up CERAWeek feeling excited about the future of our industry and ready to get back to work and #MoveTheWorldForward.