No ‘show-stopping’ barriers to bioenergy with CCS

There are no “show-stopping” barriers to the deployment of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, the Energy Technologies Institute has concluded in a new report.

The organisation has urged the government to include a demonstration project in any national strategy for carbon capture storage (CCS). It said ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and return it to the ground would be “critical” to meeting emissions targets in a cost effective manner.

Bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) is a “credible, scalable and efficient technology” and could be deployed in the UK by as early as 2030, the report said: “All the major components of a BECCS system have now been demonstrated or ‘proven’ individually.”

If successfully implemented, it could generate ‘negative emissions’ of up to 55 million tonnes each year in the 2050s – the equivalent of half of the UK’s emissions target in 2050.

“The UK is well-placed to exploit the benefits of BECCS because it has vast storage opportunities offshore, experience in bioenergy deployment, and academic and industrial strength in both bioenergy and CCS,” said ETI strategy manager Geraldine Newton-Cross.

“The individual technologies, sectors and value chains have been substantially de-risked over the last 10 years so the next steps are to demonstrate all the components together in combination at a UK plant. This will prove the technology, feedstock supply and logistics, and overall commercial viability.”

The report highlighted a growing pool of evidence on the viability of BECSS regarding a number of specific concerns: the “costs, efficiencies and challenges” involved; the emissions reductions which can be achieved; the potential availability and sustainability of feedstocks; and the identification and assessment of “high capacity, low cost, low-risk stores” for CO2 around the UK.

“This progress in the technical, environmental and financial evidence and understanding, together with the commercial demonstration steps being taken by others globally, should give the UK government confidence to commit to, and support the demonstration of this vital technology in the UK,” Newton-Cross added. “All the BECCS jigsaw pieces are now clear and on the table. Others have started to put them in place internationally, and the UK should do the same.”

A state-backed company is needed to kick start the development of CCS in the UK, a study led by Lord Oxburgh concluded in October. It drew attention to a “policy disconnect” between the government’s scrapping of a £1 billion commercialisation competition in November and the advice it received from “a number of independent policy bodies” about the importance of the technology for reducing emissions affordably.

The Committee on Climate Change, which monitors the government’s progress towards its emissions targets, has described the development of CCS as “critically important” and has warned the government it will be unable to meet its long-term goal of net zero emissions in the second half the century without BECCS.

Norway announced in October it was pressing ahead with plans to build a “full-scale” demonstration project for industrial CCS. The month also saw the Teesside Collective commission a study into a possible subsidy mechanism to support the development of industrial CCS in the UK.