Why engineered carbon removals are at odds with energy security and affordability

Tackling the costs and risks in net zero strategies

Research paper Updated 17 December 2024 ISBN: 978 1 78413 620 8 DOI: 10.55317/9781784136208

A man driving a forklift truck in a depot housing a pile of wood pellets

Dr Daniel Quiggin

Senior Research Fellow, Environment and Society Centre

At the heart of net zero is a reliance on negative emissions, or carbon removals, to counterbalance emissions from sectors such as agriculture, shipping and aviation that are technically and economically very difficult to decarbonize. But the costs of engineered carbon removals – which rely on human-made technologies rather than nature-based solutions – could be prohibitive at the scale currently envisaged in many countries’ net zero strategies. These costs are incompatible with governments’ focus on energy security and affordability.

This research paper analyses the costs for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS). It proposes that there is scope for their high costs, as well as the risks, to be shared and minimized through a more collaborative international approach.

Even so, BECCS and DACCS will not be low-cost technologies, particularly compared with renewables like wind and solar, or batteries for electric vehicles. This means that greater focus must be placed on energy efficiency and demand management to reduce reliance on engineered carbon removals, and to ease energy security and affordability concerns.

04 International cooperation to minimize the risks of reliance on engineered removals

There is scope for costs and risks of BECCS and DACCS to be shared and minimized through a more collaborative international approach. Valuable lessons could be drawn from cooperation in the civil nuclear sector. But even where costs are minimized, this does not mean that such technologies are low-cost solutions.

While engineered CO₂ removal technologies hold some promise for mitigating climate change, they currently, as explored in the previous chapter, bring significant cost challenges related to their high energy input requirement, particularly if relied on at scale. Addressing not just the cost, but also land-use tensions and supply-chain challenges (for a brief overview of these issues, see Box 1), will be crucial for unlocking their full potential while also minimizing the cost barriers and risks.

By leveraging shared expertise, resources and experiences across multiple countries, international collaboration plays an important role in reducing the costs and risks associated with deploying new, complex and innovative technologies to global challenges. Such cooperation can facilitate knowledge exchange, enable technology transfer, reduce duplication costs, and streamline supply chains via standardization. This chapter examines current cooperation initiatives concerned with engineered removals, and also looks at the record of international cooperation efforts in the civil nuclear sector, to draw lessons and provide recommendations as to how engineered removals technologies might be deployed at scale in a more cost-effective and risk-reduced manner.

The current status of international cooperation on engineered removals

Many multinational corporations – including Microsoft, Bank of America, Mitsubishi Industries, Airbus, JP Morgan Chase, UBS, Boston Consulting Group and Accenture – have forged corporate partnerships with BECCS and DACCS developers.124 However, international cooperation between governments is more limited. What does exist is largely centred within the EU, coordinated by the European Commission.

The GeoEngineering and NegatIve Emissions pathways in Europe (GENIE) project was launched in 2021. Due to run until 2027, this €9.3 million collaboration focuses on the environmental, technical, social, legal, ethical and policy dimensions of greenhouse gas removals in a wider sense than just BECCS and DACCS, and is also investigating solar radiation management.125 More specifically on BECCS and DACCS, the EU’s key research and innovation funding programme, Horizon Europe, has a call for proposals, open until early 2025, that seeks to fund research projects with the goal of enabling ‘cost-effective deployment of technologies such as DACCS and/or BECCS ideally linking them to industrial clusters with special emphasis of these technologies to safe CO₂ underground storage and CO₂ utilisation’.126

The Group of Negative Emitters (GONE) was launched in December 2023 at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Spearheaded by Denmark, along with Finland and Panama, GONE is a coalition of countries seeking to ‘remove more planet-heating carbon dioxide than they produce’,127 drawing on both nature-based solutions such as afforestation, and technologies such as engineered removals.128 The Carbon Management Challenge, co-sponsored by Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, the UK and the US, was launched in April 2023 ‘to accelerate the scale up of carbon capture, utilization and storage and carbon dioxide removal as necessary complements to aggressive deployment of other zero-carbon technologies and energy efficiency’. The group brings together 20 countries plus the European Commission, with the ambition to advance ‘carbon management projects that globally will reach gigaton scale by 2030’.129

The IEA’s Technology Collaboration Programme (TCP) supports the ‘work of independent, international groups of experts that enable governments and industries from around the world to lead programmes and projects on a wide range of energy technologies and related issues’, in line with the IEA’s shared goals of ‘energy security, environmental protection and economic growth, as well as engagement worldwide’.130 The TCP supports (among other technologies) work on breakthrough technologies like nuclear fusion power,131 which – like BECCS – is yet to be deployed commercially. Notably, however, while the TCP supports many low-carbon technologies, it currently only has one relatively small work programme on GGRs.132

There are many academic and policy institutions, among them the Royal Society,133 calling for greater international governance of geoengineering more broadly,134 and the storage and permanence risks of geologically stored CO₂,135 as well as a broad array of supply chain, feedstock, and other standards pertaining to BECCS and negative emissions more widely.136 Indeed, since 2007, there have been calls for an international regulatory framework for risk governance of CCS.137

Nuclear power – a prime example to learn from

Civil nuclear power is an interesting analogue through which to explore how international cooperation might minimize the risks of scaling engineered removals and keep deployment costs manageable. Nuclear power is highly contentious and costly relative to other low-carbon technologies. Moreover, the storage of radioactive waste, like the geological storage of waste CO₂, requires careful consideration of its permanence and leakage risks.138 Furthermore, the supply chains for uranium and plutonium encompass critical risks – albeit very different risks to those for woody biomass.

Importantly, it should be noted that the costs of nuclear power have remained stubbornly high over the decades. As shown in Figure 7, nuclear, on a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) basis, increased by almost half between 2009 and 2023, to reach £180/MWh in the latter year (having exceeded £150/MWh every year since 2017). Over the same period, and on the same basis, solar and wind have declined in cost by more than 80 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively.139

In 2010, the World Nuclear Association (WNA) set up a working group on Cooperation in Reactor Design Evaluation and Licensing (CORDEL), a collaboration aimed at achieving greater international standardization in reactor design. With harmonization of reactor design comes not only increased confidence in safety, but also, it is intended, minimization of costs.140 As the WNA states: ‘Gains in safety assurance and cost reduction will inevitably occur when feedback from worldwide nuclear operations is systematically focused on perfecting a small number of standard designs which have been certified and approved by a recognized competent authority in the country of origin.’141

This approach of international standardization of technology design, to either minimize otherwise even higher costs, or actually drive them down, would be a beneficial approach in engineered removal technologies.

Figure 7. Comparative costs of low-carbon and traditional power sources, 2009–23

— Source: Schneider, M., Froggatt, A. et al. (2023), World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2023, p. 415 (Fig. 64), https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2023.

The approach of standardization to minimize or reduce costs is also demonstrated at the national level. For instance, the French National Audit Office has shown how EDF leveraged the standardization of the French fleet, with vertically integrated supply chains, leading to significant cost reductions.142 Standardization across countries requires industrial organization and homogenized supply chains to speed up transactions, resulting in increased manufacturing productivity via the production of a greater number of identical components. Increased volume production via standardization also increases supply chain competition, and enables long-term contracting.143 Standardization also enables operational efficiency and learning. The nuclear engineering company Assystem anticipates that a substantial programme of standardizing nuclear builds could reduce the costs of nuclear power in the West to £60–70/MWh.144 In the case of BECCS, however, it is important to emphasize that vertical integration of biomass feedstock supply chains could bring increased risks.

Beyond the WNA and the CORDEL initiative, a significant body of international and bilateral agreements, multilateral organizations and technology sharing supports the industry.145 In the period 2000–15, according to a 2019 study of some 500 cooperation agreements, and over 200 memorandums of understanding and joint statements, the US and Russia dominated international technological cooperation.146 The study’s authors found that the US was particularly dominant in areas of safety and security, and Russia in construction of nuclear power plants, reactor and fuel supply, and decommissioning and waste.

The most significant safety-related collaboration internationally is via the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), formed in 1989 as a response to the Chernobyl disaster three years earlier. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with 126 member states, is the main international organization for peaceful use of nuclear energy and technology, and is an autonomous intergovernmental organization within the UN system. The IAEA covers international cooperation across reactor operations, the nuclear fuel cycle, radioactive waste management, human health and radiation protection, and safeguards. The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), representing 33 countries with 84 per cent of the world’s nuclear capacity, assists member countries in developing the scientific, technological and legal bases required for nuclear power, and the costs of decommissioning.147 At the downstream end of the nuclear fuel cycle, established in 1998 and with 11 country members, is the International Association for the Environmentally Safe Disposal of Radioactive Materials (EDRAM). At the regional European level, the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) establishes a single market for the trade in nuclear materials and technology.148 In September 2011, the Nuclear Power Plant Exporters’ Principles of Conduct was established to ensure best practices in the export of nuclear power plants. These principles focus on safety, physical security, environmental protection and spent fuel management, systems of compensation for nuclear damage, non-proliferation and safeguards, and business ethics.149 The initiative has a notable focus on countries with an emerging interest in pursuing civil nuclear energy development.150

International cooperation is needed to address the risks of engineered carbon removals, especially given concerns regarding, in the case of BECCS, supply chains, land-use tensions, deforestation and carbon debt, and for both DACCS and BECCS, the permanence risks of geologically stored CO₂. The need for international collaboration will be all the more acute as the technologies are scaled up. Valuable lessons could therefore be drawn from cooperation in the civil nuclear sector.

International collaboration can reduce the risks and collectivize the costs

A study published in 2020 by researchers at Imperial College London151 clearly sets out the benefits of international collaboration in driving down costs of BECCS. Their study explored the cost-optimal deployment of BECCS between the EU, Brazil, China, India and the US. The researchers identified that a cooperative and collaborative approach to CO₂ removal, based on equitable burden-sharing and CO₂ storage trading, is needed in order to meet global removal targets at least cost. This is principally because countries do not possess an equal share of sustainable biomass and geological features to provide sustainable, permanent and affordable CO₂ removal. This means that there are significant differences in life-cycle removal costs of BECCS between regions. As such, they identify that collaboration is required in setting up the systems and markets to enable the trading of negative emissions credits and biomass in order to sustainably and affordably meet global targets for CO₂ removal.152

As shown in Figure 8, the cost of BECCS CO₂ removal varies according to region, due to variations in how the supply chain is configured, and the researchers identified feedstock yield as a key determinant of cost.153 This is particularly starkly illustrated in the biomass yield differences between Brazil and the UK. Not only did biomass feedstock yield impact costs, but the researchers also found that labour costs and the costs of electricity strongly influenced the required CO₂ removal subsidy or costs of removal credits within a trading system to make BECCS systems economically viable.

The same study’s authors found that for 2100, the forecast regional differences in BECCS costs ranged between $85/tCO₂ in South China, within an optimistic biomass supply chain scenario, up to $450/tCO₂ in the UK under a pessimistic biomass supply chain configuration, with up to a 50 per cent increase in cost in the case of the UK importing biomass from Brazil.154 Hence, the cost-optimal BECCS deployment is achieved with low-cost regions providing CO₂ removal for regions where BECCS costs are higher. The researchers concluded that ‘full inter-regional collaboration in biomass and negative emissions trading led to highest chance of meeting global targets at the lowest cost’.155

Figure 8. Breakdown of BECCS cost in selected regions, 2030–2100 forecasts

— Source: Fajardy, M. and Mac Dowell, N. (2020), ‘Recognizing the Value of Collaboration in Delivering Carbon Dioxide Removal’, One Earth, 3(2), pp. 214–25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.07.014.

The importance of regional cooperation around CO₂ geological storage, to lower costs for all, can be seen within the EU’s 2024 Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA). The NZIA includes a target for the EU to develop at least 50 million tonnes per year of CO₂ storage capacity by 2030 in geological storage sites, including depleted oil and gas fields and saline aquifers.156 In 2024, too, a North Sea regional agreement between Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden was established that will allow these countries to collaborate on the cross-border transport and geological storage of captured CO₂.157 This North Sea regional grouping sits in parallel with the European Commission’s North Seas Energy Cooperation project (NSEC).158 The UK, while (like Norway) not a member of the EU, signed a memorandum of understanding with NSEC in 2022, and carbon storage is seen as an important area of collaboration between the UK and the EU.159

Short-term demand management could allow decarbonization to catch up and reduce reliance on engineered removals

Focusing on demand reduction in the short term could allow time for supply-side decarbonization efforts to catch up. As the IEA states:

[T]echnology alone is not enough: net zero emissions in 2050 cannot happen without the consent and active support of people. In part, this involves one-off events that are not counted as behavioural changes but involve a mixture of low carbon technologies and people’s engagement, such as buying an electric vehicle (EV) or insulating a loft. However, behavioural changes – meaning adjustments in everyday life that reduce wasteful or excessive energy consumption – are also needed. They are especially important in richer parts of the world where energy intensive lifestyles are the norm.160

By prioritizing demand-side actions, such as improving building insulation, promoting use of public transport and adopting energy-efficient appliances, countries could achieve emission reductions at lower costs and with fewer barriers to implementation than those explored in this paper with regard to engineered removals, and by virtue reduce the risks of large-scale reliance on engineered carbon removals. As underscored by the IPCC in 2022:

Mitigation strategies that focus on lowering demand for energy and land-based resources exhibit reduced trade-offs and negative consequences for sustainable development relative to pathways involving either high emissions and climate impacts or pathways with high consumption and emissions that are ultimately compensated by large quantities of BECCS.161

And, as was highlighted in Chapter 1, across the influential IAMs only 5 per cent involved substantial energy demand reduction from current levels by 2100,162 reflecting the IAMs’ techno-economic focus, and the fact that these models under-represent the potential for global energy demand reduction to contribute to carbon mitigation targets, particularly in reducing dependence on CO₂ removal techniques.

The IPCC classifies future emissions reduction mitigation strategies from the demand side into ‘avoid’, ‘shift’ and ‘improve’ options. As can be seen in Figure 9, the behavioural change elements of avoid and shift total around 7 tonnes CO₂e per capita,163 which should be assessed within the context that per capita emissions from fossil fuels and industry are around 15 tonnes CO₂ in the US, a little over 7 tonnes CO₂ across the EU and 8 tonnes CO₂ in China.164 Indeed, across three end-use sectors (buildings, land transport and food), the IPCC indicates with a high level of confidence that the demand side could reduce emissions of direct and indirect CO₂ and non-CO₂ greenhouse gas emissions by between 40 and 70 per cent globally by 2050.165

Figure 9. Low-carbon lifestyles can be classified into avoid, shift and improve options

— Source: Pathak, M. et al. (2022), ‘Technical Summary’, Figure TS.20(b), in Shukla, P. R. et al. (eds) (2022), Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157926.002.

Critically, however, governments remain reluctant to invest in or promote demand-side action, particularly where public behaviour change is required. The IPCC notes: ‘Policies that are aimed at behaviour and lifestyle changes carry a perception of political risks for policymakers, which may explain why policy instruments focus more on information provision and adoption of incentives than on regulation and investment.’166

In this context, international technical, social and policy data sharing on demand could benefit governments that are currently wary of implementing demand-side policies. Sharing on demand initiatives could also help normalize the behavioural aspects of energy transition across countries. Best- as well as worst-practice examples of policymaking, communication and implementation would help governments avoid pitfalls – and thus the associated political risk of public backlash. It may also help prevent high-profile policy failures, which can damage narratives of the overarching need for public engagement on climate action, and jeopardize governments’ ability to reach their legally binding national and multilateral commitments to emissions reductions.

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Fajardy, M. and Mac Dowell, N. (2020), ‘Recognizing the Value of Collaboration in Delivering Carbon Dioxide Removal’, One Earth, 3(2), pp. 214–25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.07.014.
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Pathak et al. (2022), ‘Technical Summary’, Figure TS.20(b), in Shukla et al. (eds) (2022), Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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Ibid., p. 565.

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