Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage

"BECS" redirects here. For the Moldovan political alliance created in May 2021, see Electoral Bloc of Communists and Socialists.
Example of BECCS: Diagram of bioenergy power plant with carbon capture and storage.[1]

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is the process of extracting bioenergy from biomass and capturing and storing the carbon, thereby removing it from the atmosphere.[2] BECCS can theoretically be a "negative emissions technology" (NET),[3] although its deployment at the scale considered by many governments and industries can "also pose major economic, technological, and social feasibility challenges; threaten food security and human rights; and risk overstepping multiple planetary boundaries, with potentially irreversible consequences".[4] The carbon in the biomass comes from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) which is extracted from the atmosphere by the biomass when it grows. Energy ("bioenergy") is extracted in useful forms (electricity, heat, biofuels, etc.) as the biomass is utilized through combustion, fermentation, pyrolysis or other conversion methods.

Some of the carbon in the biomass is converted to CO2 or biochar which can then be stored by geologic sequestration or land application, respectively, enabling carbon dioxide removal (CDR).[3]

The potential range of negative emissions from BECCS was estimated to be zero to 22 gigatonnes per year.[5] As of 2019, five facilities around the world were actively using BECCS technologies and were capturing approximately 1.5 million tonnes per year of CO2.[6] Wide deployment of BECCS is constrained by cost and availability of biomass.[7][8]: 10 

  1. ^ Sanchez, Daniel L.; Kammen, Daniel M. (2015-09-24). "Removing Harmful Greenhouse Gases from the Air Using Energy from Plants". Frontiers for Young Minds. 3. doi:10.3389/frym.2015.00014. ISSN 2296-6846.
  2. ^ Obersteiner, M. (2001). "Managing Climate Risk". Science. 294 (5543): 786–7. doi:10.1126/science.294.5543.786b. PMID 11681318. S2CID 34722068.
  3. ^ a b National Academies of Sciences, Engineering (2018-10-24). Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda. doi:10.17226/25259. ISBN 978-0-309-48452-7. PMID 31120708. S2CID 134196575. Archived from the original on 2020-05-25. Retrieved 2020-02-22.
  4. ^ Deprez, Alexandra; Leadley, Paul; Dooley, Kate; Williamson, Phil; Cramer, Wolfgang; Gattuso, Jean-Pierre; Rankovic, Aleksandar; Carlson, Eliot L.; Creutzig, Felix (2024-02-02). "Sustainability limits needed for CO 2 removal". Science. 383 (6682): 484–486. doi:10.1126/science.adj6171. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 38301011. S2CID 267365599.
  5. ^ Smith, Pete; Porter, John R. (July 2018). "Bioenergy in the IPCC Assessments". GCB Bioenergy. 10 (7): 428–431. Bibcode:2018GCBBi..10..428S. doi:10.1111/gcbb.12514. hdl:2164/10480.
  6. ^ "BECCS 2019 perspective" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-03-31. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  7. ^ Rhodes, James S.; Keith, David W. (2008). "Biomass with capture: Negative emissions within social and environmental constraints: An editorial comment". Climatic Change. 87 (3–4): 321–8. Bibcode:2008ClCh...87..321R. doi:10.1007/s10584-007-9387-4.
  8. ^ Fajardy, Mathilde; Köberle, Alexandre; Mac Dowell, Niall; Fantuzzi, Andrea (2019). "BECCS deployment: a reality check" (PDF). Grantham Institute Imperial College London.