NET Power’s Recalibration and Other CCS Delays, Deferments, and Cancellations

     Enverus’s Graham Bain provided an interesting update last month on NET Power's reconfigured plans for its CCS-equipped power plants and for downgraded CCS project plans in general in a LinkedIn post. I am a bit disappointed with NET Power, as I thought they would have had some plants up and running by now after considerable hype in the 2020-2025 period. Bain notes that they went from capture-by-design through pre-combustion capture through burning natural gas with pure oxygen yielding high-purity carbon for capture, to bolt-on carbon capture after the plants were built, and finally to no carbon capture at all. Below is a section from an August press release by NET Power.

     NET Power’s CEO Danny Rice noted:

“Our commercial strategy is recalibrated around what we believe today’s power customers are actually prioritizing: speed-to-power, reliability, and scale. Natural gas power generation, co-located with customer load and deployable on a fast timeline, is how we expect to meet that demand today. We continue to believe carbon capture and sequestration will play an integral role in the future of natural gas power, and our approach preserves that pathway, adding carbon capture in future phases as customer requirements, economics, and financing support it.”

     Bain summarized the changes at NET Power:

“The company was built on the Allam-Fetvedt cycle, which is an argument about concentration. Burn gas in pure oxygen instead of air and the exhaust comes off as nearly pure CO2.”

“𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱: Project Permian Phase I moves to conventional gas turbines paired with Entropy post-combustion capture. Oxy-fuel is out, capture stays, and it now costs more.”

“𝗔𝘂𝗴𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲: capture comes out of Phase I too. NET Power contracts 68 MW of turbines against a roughly 1 GW site ambition, the FID it had targeted for 2026 goes indefinite, and cash sits at $310mn against $424mn nine months earlier.”

“Speed first, then reliability, then cost, then carbon. Sustainability is now at the bottom.”

     Apparently, the 45Q incentive is not enough to ensure profitability at present, or at least in a timely manner. He also summed up other gas-with-CCS projects tied to AI buildout, with only about a third with announced CCS plans. In the others, CCS is delayed, deferred, or could be canceled.

“Across 15 announced North American gas-plus-CCS projects tied to AI there's about 18.5 GW of capacity and only 6.6 GW with capture in the announced scope. The rest is CCS-ready, deferred or offset-backed. Chevron ruled capture out of Project Kilby phase 1 on economics. Entergy pushed it to a retrofit. Prometheus buys 500 ktpa of removals instead of capturing at the stack. Three US retreats landed within six days, including Chevron leaving the Western Regional DAC Hub and Heidelberg Materials pausing Edmonton.”

     Commenters were surprised at NET Power's pivoting, some saying, like me, that they had higher hopes for faster deployment, and others stressing that the oxy-fuel combustion part of the power plants was the key feature, and is now the furthest part from deployment.

  

 

 

References:

NET Power went from capture-by-design, to bolt-on capture, to no capture at all. Graham Bain. August 2026. Post | LinkedIn

Net Power Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results and Provides Business Update. NET Power. Press Release. August 13, 2026. Net Power Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results and Provides Business Update