Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

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funkervogt
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Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

Post by funkervogt »

This is fascinating. Basically, you find a place where the geology is able to store CO2 (porous rock), build a power plant there that burns wood, and use it to generate electricity while piping the CO2 underground where it is trapped. A BECCS plant effectively removes carbon from the atmosphere and sequesters it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioenergy ... nd_storage

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caltrek
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Re: Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

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Support for Carbon Capture and Sequestration is Key to a Greener, More Reliable Grid
August 5, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in West Virginia v. EPA limited the agency’s ability to impose national regulations on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions absent specific authority from Congress, making the Biden administration’s efforts to decarbonize the economy more difficult. Without a broad tool, is it still possible to achieve a net-zero CO2 power sector by 2035, and a net-zero economy by 2050?

In a new paper published in Environmental Science and Technology , researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Wyoming show that existing fossil-fuel capacity can play a significant role in reaching net-zero with both current and modified “Section 45Q" tax incentives for carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The team arrived at this conclusion after an intensive policy analysis of energy generation strategies encompassing sources like nuclear, renewables with different energy storage options, and carbon-emitting generation with CCS with capture rates at a conventionally-studied 90% rate and at a newly-targeted 99% rate. Their criteria for the preferred generation strategy were based on the triple objectives of grid reliability, cost minimization, and potential to achieve net-zero goals in a grid with high levels of renewable generation. While renewable power is currently the least-cost option for carbon-free generation alone, the cost to maintain reliability with nothing but renewables skyrockets beyond a certain market share.

The study was led by Jeffrey Anderson, recent PhD graduate from the Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP) at CMU and research fellow at University of Wyoming, and co-authored by David Rode, adjunct researcher at the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, Professor Haibo Zhai of the University of Wyoming College of Engineering and Applied Science, and Professor Paul Fischbeck of EPP and Social & Decision Sciences at CMU.

They identified two generation methods as best for meeting the triple objective. First, existing coal-fired plants can cofire bioenergy sources like plant matter in existing coal-fired assets equipped with CCS, known as bioenergy carbon capture and storage. The second method is to couple existing natural gas combined cycle plants equipped with CCS and a negative emissions technology such as direct air capture and storage.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/960000
For the paper on the subject appearing in Environmental Science and Technology : https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c06661
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caltrek
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Re: Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

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I know the title of this thread is Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, but it begs the question, what about carbon capture and storage where the energy sources are fossil fuel?

'A Dangerous Bet': Analysts Question Manchin Bill's Carbon Capture Promises
by Jake Johnson
August 11, 2022

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Senate Democrats have repeatedly claimed that the Inflation Reduction Act would reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 40% by the end of the decade, a figure used to tout the bill's potentially transformative climate impact despite its myriad flaws.

But is that estimate of the legislation's emissions-reduction capacity reliable?

The environmental group Food and Water Watch (FWW) suggested Thursday that it may not be, given the reliance on "highly dubious predictions about the effectiveness of carbon capture, and the notion that the industry would see massive growth in just a matter of months."

Despite receiving huge injections of federal funds in recent years, carbon capture and storage projects have largely proven to be failures in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. Recent research has shown that major carbon capture efforts in the U.S. have actually led to a net increase in carbon emissions.

Yet the most prominent analysis of the IRA's emissions-reduction potential—a 36-page report spearheaded by Princeton University's REPEAT Project—puts significant weight on the ability of carbon capture technology to rein in emissions given the helping hand provided by the IRA's expansion of the so-called 45Q tax credit.
Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... -promises
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caltrek
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Re: Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

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Over-reliance on Biomass-based Carbon Removal Technologies Could Increase Climate and Food Security Risks
September 7, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) An international team of researchers highlighted the inherent risk of relying too much on carbon removal technologies to limit climate change in a new study just published in Nature.

To limit global warming to within 2°C above pre-industrial levels, many are putting their hopes on the world’s abundant supply of biomass – materials like wood and wood residues, energy crops, and agricultural remnants – to deploy large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), the use of which is also assumed to increase considerably in the future. The problem with this strategy, however, is that the detrimental effects of climate change on crop yields may reduce the capacity of BECCS and threaten food security, thus creating an unrecognized positive feedback loop on global warming.

In their study, the research group comprising researchers from IIASA, Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and several other institutions around the world, endeavored to quantify the strength of this feedback by taking a closer look at the nexus of climate change, agriculture, bioenergy, and carbon removal technologies. IIASA provided the core model that enabled the study, along with the associated expertise and feedback in designing the study itself.

Using the shared socioeconomic pathways of climate mitigation, the researchers designed a number of scenarios in which the deployment of large-scale mitigation technologies and BECCS starts in different decades, from 2030 to 2100, and further considered technical solutions to food shortages including cropland expansion, nitrogen fertilizer intensification, nitrogen use efficiency enhancement, afforestation, and international food trade.
Conclusion:
“Although in our study we focused on only one carbon removal technology – BECCS – and showed how it will likely be limited because of harmful climate feedbacks, it is entirely possible that other technologies have similar limitations,” notes IIASA researcher, Thomas Gasser, one of the study authors. “Therefore, over-reliance on such unproven technologies when designing climate policies means taking the risk of simply failing to reach one's goal. The solution may be to diversify the technologies (to spread the risks out), but primarily it is to rely on conventional mitigation approaches, that is, to lower energy demand and consumption, and develop a sustainable clean energy supply.”
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/964053
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Re: Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

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Energy Department announces largest-ever investment in 'carbon removal'
Source: AP
The Energy Department announced Friday it is awarding up to $1.2 billion to two projects to remove carbon dioxide from the air in what officials said was the largest investment in “engineered carbon removal” in history.

The process, known as direct air capture, does not yet exist on a meaningful scale and could be a game changer if it did so economically.

“If we deploy this at scale, this technology can help us make serious headway toward our net zero emissions goals while we are still focused on deploying more clean energy at the same time,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a press conference.

Project Cypress will be built in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. South Texas DAC will is planned for Kleberg County, Texas. Each claims it will capture up to one million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. A representative of the Texas project said it will scale up to remove 30 million metric tons per year once fully operational. No date was given.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/climate-carb ... a00693dd1a
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U.S. to Invest $1.2 Billion in Plants to Pull Carbon from Air
August 11, 2023

Introduction:
(AFP via Courthouse News) — The U.S. government said Friday it will spend up to $1.2 billion for two pioneering facilities to vacuum carbon out of the air, a technology to combat global warming that is not universally praised by experts.

The two projects -- in Texas and Louisiana -- each aim to eliminate one million tons of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent in total to the annual emissions of 445,000 gas-powered cars.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fuel climate change and extreme weather.

"Today's announcement will be the world's largest investment in engineered carbon removal in history," the Energy Department said in a statement.

"Cutting back on our carbon emissions alone won't reverse the growing impacts of climate change," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in the statement. "We also need to remove the CO2 that we've already put in the atmosphere."
Read more here: https://www.courthousenews.com/us-to-i ... rom-air/
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Researchers develop new carbon-capture solution for a cleaner, more energy-dense fuel source
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-car ... -fuel.html
by Nathi Magubane, University of Pennsylvania
Over the past three centuries, especially since the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and 19th centuries, human activities have significantly increased greenhouse gas levels in the Earth's atmosphere. The main culprits are fossil fuel consumption, industrial processes, deforestation, and waste management.

In response, the United States aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52% from 2005 levels by 2030. This initiative aligns with a global effort to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. With electric power and industry sectors contributing to about half of U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, finding solutions in these areas is imperative.

Now, in a paper published in Nature Energy, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Illinois Institute of Technology, and the University of Illinois at Chicago have developed a system that can convert CO2 emissions into propane (C3H8), a cleaner, more energy-dense fuel source.

"Electrochemical conversion of CO2 can serve future energy needs by storing renewable energy and closing the anthropogenic carbon cycle," says co-author Andrew Rappe of the School of Arts & Sciences at Penn. "This research paves the way to new solutions that will tackle energy storage challenges and meaningfully reduce CO2 levels."
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Re: Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

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Legal mining sites in Brazil store 2.55 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide in vegetation and soil, study estimates
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-legal-sit ... arbon.html
by Luciana Constantino, FAPESP

As global temperatures continue to reach all-time highs and discussions intensify about ways to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change, researchers at the University of São Paulo's Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ-USP) in Brazil have reported the results of a scientific study showing that if all the country's active legal mining sites continue to operate in the coming decades, emissions will total an estimated 2.55 gigatonnes of equivalent carbon dioxide (Gt CO2eq) due to loss of vegetation (0.87 Gt CO2eq) and soil (1.68 Gt CO2eq).

This total corresponds to about 5% of the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

An article on the study is published in Communications Earth & Environment.
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Carbon Capture Plant Fights Climate Change by Pulling CO2 From the Air
by Regina Sienra
November 25, 2023

Introduction:
(My Modern Met) In the fight against climate change, every new tool and development are welcome additions. The latest breakthrough technology doesn't prevent carbon emissions, but instead, pulls them straight from the air. A start-up named Heirloom Carbon Technologies has just opened the first commercial plant in the United States to use direct air capture, which absorbs greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

To capture the carbon dioxide, the company uses limestone, one of the most abundant rocks on the planet. Since limestone forms when calcium oxide binds with carbon dioxide, Heirloom has found a way to use it like a sponge they can wring over and over. The plant heats up the limestone, pulling the carbon dioxide from it. Following this process, what's left is a fine white powder—which is the calcium oxide. The team then places the powder in metal trays and exposes it to the open air, adds water, and waits for three days for it to turn back to limestone, restarting the cycle. The entire process is powered by renewable energy.

As for the carbon dioxide that has been pulled from the air, Heirloom has the gas permanently sealed by mixing it into concrete, where it can’t escape anymore. The company is also looking into burying the capture carbon dioxide into underground storage wells.

The plant, located in California's Central Valley, is relatively small. Currently, it has the capacity to absorb a maximum of 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, which is roughly equal to the exhaust from about 200 cars. The team is also still tweaking up the variables that could speed up the process and lower the costs. Yet the company expects to grow exponentially by replicating their simple model. “We want to get to millions of tons per year,” said Shashank Samala, the company’s chief executive. “That means copying and pasting this basic design over and over.”
Read more here: https://mymodernmet.com/heirloom-carbo ... e-plant/
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