Development of CCS and BECCS technologies
Despite the greater amenability of BECCS to quantitative modelling than many other negative emissions technologies, it is still only a fledgling technology, unproven at scale (see Box 1). Its slow progress is part of a wider picture of sluggish development of CCS technology generally. By 2019, 18 large-scale CCS facilities were in commercial operation worldwide, capturing 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year (though only around a tenth of this was in geological storage);21 this was an increase from 15 facilities and 28 million tonnes three years earlier. A further five facilities were under construction and 20 were in various stages of development.22 While significant, this is far from the trajectory needed to satisfy Paris Agreement-compatible capture rates under the IEA’s Energy Technology Perspectives scenarios. Under the reference technology scenario, in which CCS expansion is consistent with 2017 growth rates (reflecting a continuing lack of investment incentives), total CCS deployment reaches 1.3 GtCO2/year by 2060 (more than 30 times the total 2019 capacity). Under the 2°C scenario, deployment reaches 6.8 GtCO2/year (of which BECCS accounts for 2.7 GtCO2). Under the ‘beyond 2°C’ scenario, CCS deployment reaches 11.2 GtCO2/year by 2060 (with BECCS accounting for 4.9 GtCO2).23
Box 1: The slow progress of BECCS projects
By 2019, worldwide, only one BECCS project was operating at commercial scale: the Illinois Industrial CCS facility at Decatur in the US.24 Owned by the multinational agribusiness firm Archer Daniels Midland, the plant produces ethanol from corn, with the fermentation process generating an almost pure stream of carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is injected into local porous sandstone formations beneath three layers of dense shale. Co-funded by the US government, the plant has been capturing an estimated 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year since 2017. Since the plant itself is largely powered by gas, however, it is still a net emitter overall. Furthermore, the ethanol is largely destined for use in road transport, thus ultimately producing carbon dioxide and rendering the lifecycle emissions of the bioenergy potentially net positive despite the significant CCS component.25
Other ethanol production plants have the ability to capture carbon dioxide for use in enhanced oil recovery; in 2019 the Global CCS Institute identified three such plants in the US and one in Canada.26 A large proportion (estimated at 90–95 per cent) of the carbon dioxide thus used is likely to be stored permanently.27 Another six facilities were operating or had recently operated to capture carbon dioxide for other uses, mainly crop cultivation in greenhouses; in these cases the carbon dioxide is vented into the atmosphere and not stored. Five of these facilities – four in Europe, one in the US – are ethanol plants, and the sixth is a very small waste-to-energy plant in Japan.
Three additional BECCS projects are at earlier stages, and others are being proposed or planned.28 In Omuta in Japan, construction is under way to install CCS equipment in Toshiba’s Mikawa power plant, which was converted from coal to biomass (palm kernel shells) in 2017.29 Following a pilot phase, which started in 2009 and captured 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide a day, the new equipment is designed to capture more than 500 tonnes per day, about 50 per cent of the plant’s emissions, with the aim of evaluating the performance of the carbon dioxide absorption technology (which uses ammonia-derived solvents to wash carbon dioxide out of mixed flue gases) under various operating conditions. Work to identify secure offshore storage is under way.
In February 2019, a BECCS demonstration project began capturing carbon dioxide at Drax in the UK, currently the largest biomass-burning power station (mainly burning wood pellets) in the world.30 The project was designed to capture 1 tonne of carbon dioxide a day over a period of six months to test a proprietary solvent developed by the company C-Capture, with the aim of scaling up the process in due course. What will happen to the captured carbon dioxide is not clear. News reports have suggested that the company has been in discussion with the British Beer and Pub Association over use of the carbon dioxide in brewing, and that in the longer term its use is being contemplated in the manufacture of synthetic fuels. Such a process, although potentially carbon-reducing relative to fossil fuels, would not achieve the negative emissions potentials of long-term carbon storage (due to carbon being re-released at the point of synfuel combustion).31 In May 2019, Drax signed a memorandum of understanding with Equinor and National Grid Ventures, committing the parties to work together to explore how a large-scale carbon capture, usage and storage network and a hydrogen production facility could be constructed in the mid-2020s.32
Finally, design work is under way on Norway’s full-chain CCS demonstration project.33 The intention is for an estimated 400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year to be captured from each of two facilities: the Klemetsrud waste-to-energy plant and the Norcem cement plant (which currently co-fires up to 30 per cent biomass). In each case, the carbon dioxide captured will be stored on site until it can be transported by ship for injection into a sub-sea reservoir off the Norwegian coast in the North Sea. The final investment decision is intended to be taken in 2020/21, with the project beginning operation in 2023/24.
In general, CCS technology has proved more expensive and less effective than originally expected. As in other areas, the falling prices of renewable energy technologies, particularly solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind, have undercut the appeal of CCS as a low-carbon option. This has accelerated the phase-out of coal, thus partially removing one of the sources of fossil fuels that CCS was intended for. CCS equipment can be fitted to gas-fired power plants and industrial processes, but the reductions in carbon emissions are lower than for coal, and therefore the cost per tonne of carbon captured is higher. This is not to negate the importance of CCS for industrial uses, but the case for energy-related CCS is beginning to be eroded.
The steady adoption of national net zero greenhouse gas emissions targets can be expected to accelerate progress, however, particularly in the development of CCS for hard-to-treat sources such as industrial process emissions. Some countries are beginning to put support policies in place. But as the IPCC observed in SR1.5, CCS is largely absent from countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement and generally ranks low in investment priorities.34 CCS was only identified as a priority in three of the Intended NDCs submitted in the run-up to the 2015 Paris conference, and BECCS was absent from all of them.35 This clearly places a constraint on the rapid deployment of BECCS projects.
21 Fajardy et al. (2019), BECCS Deployment: A Reality Check.
22 Global CCS Institute (undated), ‘Large Scale CCS Projects’, http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/projects/large-scale-ccs-projects.
23 IEA (2017), Energy Technology Perspectives 2017, Paris: IEA, https://webstore.iea.org/energy-technology-perspectives-2017.
24 Consoli, C. (2019), Bioenergy and Carbon Capture and Storage: 2019 Perspective, Melbourne: Global CCS Institute, https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BECCS-Perspective_FINAL_PDF.pdf.
25 Yeo, S. and Pearce, R. (2016), ‘Analysis: Negative emissions tested at world’s first major BECCS facility’, Carbon Brief, 31 May 2016, https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-negative-emissions-tested-worlds-first-major-beccs-facility.
26 Consoli (2019), Bioenergy and Carbon Capture and Storage: 2019 Perspective.
27 Núñez-López, V. and Moskal, E. (2019), ‘Potential of CO2-EOR for Near-Term Decarbonization’, Front. Clim., 27 September 2019, doi:10.3389/fclim.2019.00005.
28 Ibid.
29 Kitamura, H. (2019), ‘Toshiba’s Activity in Ministry of the Environment Sustainable CCS Project’, presentation to Japan CCS Forum, 12 June 2019, https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/HO_SS4a_ToshibaES.pdf.
30 Drax (2019), ‘Carbon dioxide now being captured in first of its kind BECCS pilot’, press release, 7 February 2019, https://www.drax.com/press_release/world-first-CO2-beccs-ccus/.
31 Holder, M. (2019) ‘“World-first”: Drax BECCS pilot begins capturing carbon emissions’, Business Green, 7 February 2019, https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3070608/world-first-drax-beccs-pilot-begins-capturing-carbon-emissions.
32 Drax (2019), ‘Leading energy companies announce new zero-carbon UK partnership’, press release, 27 May 2019, https://www.drax.com/press_release/energy-companies-announce-new-zero-carbon-uk-partnership-ccus-hydrogen-beccs-humber-equinor-national-grid/.
33 Simon, F. (2018), ‘Norway’s latest CCS revival attempt meets lukewarm EU response’, EURACTIV.com, 12 October 2018, https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/norways-latest-ccs-revival-attempt-meets-lukewarm-eu-response/.
34 IPCC (2018), Global Warming of 1.5°C, p. 346.
35 Fuss, S., Jones, C. D., Kraxner, F., Peters, G. P., Smith, P., Tavoni, M., van Vuuren, D. P., Canadell, J. G., Jackson, R. B., Milne, J., Moreira, J. R., Nakicenovic, N., Sharifi, A. and Yamagata, Y. (2016), ‘Research priorities for negative emissions’, Environmental Research Letters, 11(11), p. 115007, doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/11/115007; ‘Paris Reality Check - pledged climate futures’, https://www.pik-potsdam.de/paris-reality-check/indcs-carbon-capture-and-storage/.