A review of influencing factors for policy interventions in the deployment of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage

Abstract

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is a key negative emission technology considered by many integrated assessment models (IAMs) to achieve the 2℃ or 1.5℃ goals in the Paris Agreement. However, the technical feasibility and economic costs of BECCS in these IAMs have been widely debated, which increases the uncertainty in the projection of climate change in the 21st century. Therefore, this paper reviews the latest understanding of BECCS. The key findings reveal the limitations of current models in projecting the capacity and costs of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), mainly due to insufficient consideration of ecological consequences, including availabilities of biomass and difficulties in the transportation of biomass and CO₂. To reduce uncertainties in the capacity and costs of BECCS, it is urgently needed to apply spatially explicit method for estimating the life-cycle emissions and the complete cost items when deploying BECCS, optimize the network of biomass acquisition, power plants retrofitting and transportation of biomass and CO₂, and represent the changes in the availability of biomass (for different types of bioenergy plants) under the impacts of climate change. This paper emphasizes the gap between the potential capacity of BECCS and the demand for BECCS that is needed to achieve the climate goals. Suggestion on policy interventions is provided to accelerate the application of BECCS from the aspects of economic tools, regulatory tools, and information tools. Deployment of BECCS could be accelerated to halt the rapid rise of global annual average temperature and reduce the risk of carbon lock-in from fossil-fuel supply infrastructure. As BECCS could play a key role in achieving ambitious climate targets, it is important to maintain a balance between environmental, social, and economic considerations in the Earth system under a high sustainability of development.