Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

[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

[caltrek]

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

[caltrek]

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

[caltrek]

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

[weatheriscool]

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

[caltrek]

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/

[weatheriscool]

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."

[weatheriscool]

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.

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

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/

[caltrek]

A Cool (Temperature) Take on Direct Air Carbon Capture
December 11, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Lehigh University engineering researchers working with a Pennsylvania-based technology company have recently entered the second phase in the development of a novel ion-exchange method to capture carbon dioxide that could potentially run on waste heat produced by industry.

The method pairs a filter (more specifically, a capture sorbent, a material that absorbs CO2 gas) with an electrochemical cell that breaks down sodium sulfate into sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid solutions. These weak base and weak acid solutions work together to capture and subsequently purify the captured CO2.

Eventually, the technology will be packaged into a unit about the size of a shipping container.

“Air flows through the filter, which captures the CO2,” says Arup SenGupta, a professor of both chemical and biomolecular engineering and civil and environmental engineering and lead researcher on the project. “When the filter capacity is exhausted, the conversion process initiated by the electrochemical cell produces pure CO2 that you can then pressurize and put in underground storage, or liquify and sell on the market.”

Additionally, he says, the sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid recombine in the process to form sodium sulfate. “So you can keep using the salt to sequester CO2, in theory, forever,” he says.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1010777

[caltrek]

Direct Air Capture: An Expensive, Dangerous Distraction from Real Climate Solutions
by Kurt Zenz House, Josh Goldman, Charles F. Harvey
December 15, 2023

Introduction:

(Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) This month elites from 198 nations gathered in the fossil-fuel-rich United Arab Emirates for the 28th annual Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Agreement on Climate Change. Near the top of the agenda is the deployment of technologies to remove carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas causing global warming, from the atmosphere. The week before the conference started, The Economist published an approximately 10,000-word special report on the topic, and the Financial Times reported that direct air capture of carbon dioxide is “grabbing investors attention.”

All year, the zeitgeist has been building toward technologies that separate carbon dioxide from air, referred to as direct air capture (DAC). In September, the United States Department of Energy awarded Occidental Petroleum a $600 million grant to build a DAC machine. As scientists and entrepreneurs who’ve dedicated our careers to help solve global warming, you might expect us to be happy.

We are not.

The reason is simple: Separating carbon dioxide from air, while technically straightforward, is outrageously expensive. In fighting climate change, the obvious question should always be: How can we avoid the most carbon dioxide per dollar invested?

Conclusion:

Unlike other climate technologies, the only way to make air capture a business is with oil production and perpetual giant subsidies. Misallocating resources to air capture makes the planet hotter. The only winners are the recipients of the subsidies and the builders of the boondoggles.

Read more here: https://thebulletin.org/2023/12/direc ... t-heading

[weatheriscool]

A pure water-fed membrane-electrode-assembly system for electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-01-pur ... lytic.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore

The sustainably powered, electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) into useful chemicals and feedstock could help to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, allowing industries to reuse released CO2 in beneficial ways. Most of the strategies for realizing this introduced so far, however, have notable limitations, including a poor stability over long periods of time.

Researchers at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, University of Oxford and the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center recently introduced a new membrane-electrode-assembly system that could facilitate the stable electrocatalytic reduction of CO2.

Notably, their proposed system, which was first introduced in a paper published in Nature Energy, is fed by pure water (H2O) and thus does not rely on alkali-metal electrolyte.

[weatheriscool]

Engineers use moisture to pull carbon dioxide out of the air
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-03-moi ... e-air.html
by Colton Poore, Princeton University

In a corner of Kelsey Hatzell's lab sits a small jar filled with a material that has an ability far beyond what its nondescript appearance would suggest: a way to capture and release carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by simply changing the surrounding humidity.

The material could slash the energy costs associated with so-called direct air capture systems, which conventionally rely on energy-intensive temperature or pressure shifts to switch between carbon capture and release. By instead relying on humidity, the material could yield energy efficiency improvements over five times above current technologies. The researchers report their findings in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

[weatheriscool]

New process brings commercialization of CO₂ utilization technology to produce formic acid one step closer

by National Research Council of Science and Technology
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-05-com ... loser.html

CCU (carbon capture and utilization), which captures CO2 and converts it into useful compounds, is crucial for rapidly transitioning to a carbon-neutral society. While CCS (carbon capture and storage), which only involves CO2 storage, has entered the initial commercialization stage due to its relatively simple process and low operational costs, CCU has only been explored at the research level due to the complexity of conversion processes and high production costs of compounds.

Dr. Lee Ung's team at the Clean Energy Research Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology have developed a novel CCU process that converts CO2 into formic acid. Formic acid, an organic acid, is a high-value compound used in various industries such as leather, food, and pharmaceuticals.

[caltrek]

Electrified Charcoal ‘Sponge’ Can Soak Up CO2 Directly from the Air
June 5, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Researchers have developed a low-cost, energy-efficient method for making materials that can capture carbon dioxide directly from the air.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge used a method similar to charging a battery to instead charge activated charcoal, which is often used in household water filters.

By charging the charcoal ‘sponge’ with ions that form reversible bonds with CO2, the researchers found the charged material could successfully capture CO2 directly from the air.

The charged charcoal sponge is also potentially more energy efficient than current carbon capture approaches, since it requires much lower temperatures to remove the captured CO2 so it can be stored. The results are reported in the journal Nature.

“Capturing carbon emissions from the atmosphere is a last resort, but given the scale of the climate emergency, it’s something we need to investigate,” said Dr Alexander Forse from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, who led the research. “The first and most urgent thing we’ve got to do is reduce carbon emissions worldwide, but greenhouse gas removal is also thought to be necessary to achieve net zero emissions and limit the worst effects of climate change. Realistically, we’ve got to do everything we can.”

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1046838

[caltrek]

New Contaminant-tolerant Catalyst Could Help Capture Carbon Directly from Smokestacks
July 4, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) A newly designed catalyst created by University of Toronto Engineering researchers efficiently converts captured carbon into valuable products — even in the presence of a contaminant that degrades the performance of current versions.

The discovery is an important step toward more economically favourable techniques for carbon capture and storage that could be added on to existing industrial processes.

“Today, we have more and better options for low-carbon electricity generation than ever before,” says Professor David Sinton, senior author on a paper published in Nature Energy that describes the new catalyst.

“But there are other sectors of the economy that will be harder to decarbonize: for example, steel and cement manufacturing. To help those industries, we need to invent cost-effective ways to capture and upgrade the carbon in their waste streams.”

Sinton and his team use devices known as electrolyzers to convert CO2 and electricity into products such as ethylene and ethanol. These carbon-based molecules can be sold as fuels or used as chemical feedstocks for making everyday items such as plastic.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1050415

[caltrek]

New Carbon Storage Technology is Fastest of its Kind
July 8, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) A new way to store carbon captured from the atmosphere developed by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin works much faster than current methods without the harmful chemical accelerants they require.

In new research published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, the team developed a technique for ultrafast formation of carbon dioxide hydrates. These unique ice-like materials can bury carbon dioxide in the ocean, preventing it from being released into the atmosphere.

“We’re staring at a huge challenge — finding a way to safely remove gigatons of carbon from our atmosphere — and hydrates offer a universal solution for carbon storage. For them to be a major piece of the carbon storage pie, we need the technology to grow them rapidly and at scale,” said Vaibhav Bahadur, a professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering who led the research. “We’ve shown that we can quickly grow hydrates without using any chemicals that offset the environmental benefits of carbon capture.”

Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas and a major driver of climate change. Carbon capture and sequestration takes carbon out of the atmosphere and stores it permanently. And it is seen as a critical aspect of decarbonizing our planet.

Today, the most common carbon storage method involves injecting carbon dioxide into underground reservoirs. This technique has the dual benefits of trapping carbon and also increasing oil production.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1050680

[caltrek]

Scientists Bridge the 'Valley of Death' for Carbon Capture Technologies
July 17, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) A major obstacle for net zero technologies in combatting climate change is bridging the gap between fundamental research and its application in the real world.

This gap, sometimes referred to as ‘the valley of death’, is common in the field of carbon capture, where novel materials are used to remove carbon dioxide from flue gasses produced by industrial processes. This prevents carbon from entering the atmosphere, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Chemists have proposed and synthesised thousands of novel materials, such as metal-organic frameworks, with the specific purpose of capturing as much carbon dioxide as possible. But while results may look promising in a lab setting, it is difficult to know how effective these materials will perform in actual scenarios. As a result, chances are slim that any will ever cross the valley of death.

Now, a team of scientists from Heriot-Watt University is behind a pioneering platform named PrISMa (Process-Informed design of tailor-made Sorbent Materials) which uses advanced simulations and machine learning to find the most cost-effective and sustainable material-capture process combinations prior to implementation.

The platform and its associated research have been published today (July 17) in the internationally renowned journal, Nature.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1051650

For study results as published in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07683

[caltrek]

World First Carbon Capture Facility Could Remove 3,000 Tons Of CO2 From Air Annually
by Dr. Kate Spalding
August 19, 2024

Introduction:

(IFL Science) Canadian carbon removal company Deep Sky has announced plans to build the world’s first carbon removal innovation and commercialization center. It's set to be built in Innisfail, a town about an hour north of Calgary, Alberta.

The quest for net zero needs to be fought on many fronts. You have your vanguard offense: simply reducing the carbon footprint of the things we already do. Then there’s the field medics: tactics like planting more trees and restoring peatlands – not to mention just protecting the ones we already have. But what if we could add another line of attack?

Well, with this announcement from Deep Sky, we might soon be doing precisely that. They claim that the center will have the capacity to capture 3,000 tons of CO2 per year. Now, to be fair, that’s not really that much – it’s enough to offset the annual carbon footprint of about 227 individual Canadians, or 218 USians – but the firm is keen to stress that this is only the beginning.

“This project represents a world first,” Deep Sky CEO Damien Steel said in a statement on the company’s blog, “and serves as a testing ground from which the nascent industry can grow into Canada’s multi-trillion-dollar enterprise.”

The company plans for the facility to not only act as a carbon capture center, but also as a place for new ideas and future tech to be developed. “Labs makes it possible for many different Direct Air Capture (DAC) concepts to be tested simultaneously,” the statement notes, explaining that this technique should solve "the delivery delays that have plagued past global carbon removal projects.”

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/world-first ... ly-75602