BECCS: Producing energy while mitigating climate change

Introduction

A recent Nature editorial discusses the use of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (BECCS) as a viable solution to climate change as a result of greenhouse gases. It was first brought up as a potential solution to climate change in the 1990s, and has been referred to by multiple names including BECS, BCCS, and Biotic CCS. Producing energy with BECCS can result in negative net emissions. This works because BECCS burns plant material, called biomass, to produce energy. The amount of carbon released by burning biomass is equal to the amount absorbed by the plants growing, resulting in a net zero. The emissions become negative when the CO2 is captured instead of released back into the atmosphere.

An environmental research letter from IOPScience states, “Without a change in prevailing energy and climate policies, the expected future greenhouse gas emissions will likely lead to an increase of global mean surface temperature above the 2° C temperature limit endorsed by the UNFCCC.” BECCS is a proposed solution to keep us within this 2° C temperature limit, but there is debate over whether or not BECCS would be a sustainable solution to climate change. The Nature editorial describes BECCS as “the boy band launched to number one on the back of a reality television show, rather than the grizzled rockers who earned their fame after years of concerts attended by three people and a dog.” BECCS has recently gained attention as a possible solution to mitigate climate change. While many people like the idea of BECCS, there is also lots of criticism for it.

Agriculture Industry
The first stakeholder group to bring attention to is the agriculture industry. Because BECCS will rely on biomass, it will require a large amount of land. The IOPScience letter stated, “A back-of-envelope estimate of global land requirements suggests that 200 EJ yr−1 of bioenergy may require around 500 Mha of land, or one third of global crop land.” to satisfy this shift in demand for crop land, there must be a change in the agriculture industry. Felix Creautzig makes the argument that although integrated assessment models seem to take this into account, ecological models reveal the negative impacts of this. Creautzig explains that according to the IAM model, “with additional land demand for other purposes such as food production, the value of land would increase rapidly and globally and market forces would foster high yield growth.” This model assumes that the agricultural industry will be capable of increasing yields when the demand changes.

Creautzig also explains where the IAM model will get the land needed; he states, “this ‘abandoned’ land is currently agricultural land in use, which is modeled to get abandoned between 2000 and 2050 by increases in agricultural productivity.” This model relies on the agricultural industry being able to increase productivity. Although the IAM model shows high yield values for BECCS, it relies heavily on certain changes in the agricultural industry to occur. After pointing out some of the assumptions made by the IAM model, Creautzig explains that through the ecological model, “biomass plantations could compete with food for water resources, and other food-energy market interactions; and removing residues could have a negative effect on soil carbon and reduce fertility.” According to this model, the amount of stress BECCS would put on the agriculture industry would result in scarcity and negative impacts.

IPCC
Another important stakeholder group in this discussion is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC. The IPCC discusses what ideas are viable solutions for climate change. A New Scientist article discussing a recent IPCC report wrote, “The report should galvanise the UN negotiators who are drafting a global climate deal to be signed next year. But the hottest topic from the report may be its backing for negative emissions and CCS.” The IPCC believes that BECCS show promise in climate change mitigation. This IPCC report states that “combining bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) offers the prospect of energy supply with large-scale net negative emissions which plays an important role in many low-stabilization scenarios, while it entails challenges and risks.” This explains that the IPCC recognizes the fallbacks of BECCS that have been pointed out, but still believes that BECCS will be important in mitigating climate change. The IPCC further acknowledges that they are aware of these risks by stating “there is uncertainty about the potential for large-scale deployment of BECCS, large scale afforestation, and other CDR technologies and methods.” The IPCC supports BECCS as a possible solution to climate change, even though they expect to encounter problems.

Those Paying Cost
The third stakeholder group to bring attention to is those who will be paying the expense of this technology. BECCS would influence the prices consumers pay for electricity, as well as the power companies. Regardless of how it is done, if the change in temperature is to be kept within 2° C, then there is going to be some cost. The IOPScience article describes, “stringent temperature targets can be met at considerably lower cost if BECCS is available. However, the economic benefit of BECCS nearly vanishes if an overshoot of the temperature target is not allowed.” This means that BECCS is a cost effective solution, which would make it more appealing than other options to those that will have to pay for it. It is important to note that this is assuming overshoot is allowed. The IOPScience article further details this by stating, “if overshoot is allowed, BECCS may significantly reduce the cost of meeting a stringent temperature target, by delaying emission reduction efforts and using negative emissions to compensate for them later.” This assumes that the cost of BECCS will be lower later, making it more economic to allow for overshoot. In addition, the reveals that when BECCS is implemented, as well as how much technology advances play key roles in how effective BECCS is for climate change mitigation.

General Public
The final stakeholder group to address is more general that the the previous ones. As mentioned when talking about the agriculture industry, BECCS will increase land and water demand which will raise the cost of these resources and limit the availability of them. As mentioned above, electricity consumers will likely see an increase in costs, but this will be less that it would using other technologies. 

 An impact of BECCS on the general public that was not aforementioned is how it will affect food availability and diets. Creautzig writes that if we “judge 300 EJ yr−1 as feasible, pointing to a carbon-price-induced diet shift away from meat to a vegetarian diet, which would provide another 250 Mha for bioenergy.” This means that because meat requires more land to produce, as demand for land increases, we will shift towards vegetarian diets that require less land to sustain. Creautzig continues and points out this diet shift may not work out evenly. He states, “in an unequal world, the affluent may well be able to continue paying for meat, while the global poor, who live on a mostly vegetarian diet to start with, get more deprived of food. Even as diet shift might be a desirable goal in terms of public health and climate mitigation, carbon-price-induced food price change could counter the original goals of climate change mitigation – improvement of human welfare, especially that of the most vulnerable.” The IOPScience article does not go into as much detail about this but states, “Producing large amounts of bioenergy may have significant impacts on global food prices, biodiversity, water availability, etc.” This also recognizes that BECCS would affect food globally, as well as mentioning the issue of water availability. Both of these thing would impact the general public.

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On the net:
Nature Editorial: http://www.nature.com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/news/outside-the-bubble-1.19324

Bioenergy Article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcbb.12235/full

New Scientist Article: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25413-no-option-left-but-to-suck-co2-out-of-air-says-ipcc/

IOPScience Article: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034004/meta#erl461045s5

IPCC Report: http://mitigation2014.org/