Opportunities and challenges for Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) systems supporting net-zero emission targets

Abstract

▪ Anthropogenic GHG emissions have been relentlessly growing for many decades, thus compromising attempts to avoid dangerous climate change and meet net-zero emission targets by 2050. ▪ BECCS technology creates a negative carbon flow from the atmosphere into storage by coupling CO2 removal, low-carbon energy conversion routes, and carbon capture and storage technologies. ▪ Process modelling and life cycle assessment of the entire BECCS value chain must be implemented to determine the net-negative emission potential of this technology. ▪ A better understanding of the implications of large-scale BECCS deployment should be included in climate modelling methodologies such as SSPs and IAMs. ▪ While other renewable energies might be more cost-efficient, BECCS is the only carbon negative renewable energy approach and can provide sustainability co-benefits to various cross-cutting sectors. To enable these benefits, political intervention is needed to attract investment for long-term R&D and implementation of BECCS technologies. ▪ Relying on future BECCS deployment to counterbalance the current excess of CO2 emissions only can risk sustainability benefits and would not enable the full potential and benefits of BECCS. Policy frameworks should go beyond the greenhouse gas removal potential of BECCS and integrate wider sustainability benefits whilst also considering trade-offs, for example in regard to land-use, food security, biodiversity, income opportunities, technology and infrastructure development and social justice.