Abstract
Carbon dioxide removal options have been identified as key to achieving the climate change target laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is particularly attractive because it is capable of providing negative emissions and a reliable energy source. We here explore the complexity of the infrastructures involved in realizing a large-scale system and the sequestration potential of bioenergy in Europe. Starting from a minimum cost scenario, we develop cost-optimal solutions that minimize the environmental impact of the overall BECCS supply chain according to the life cycle impact assessment methodology. Our analysis is based on cooperation among the 28 countries of the European Union (as of 2018) to achieve a global carbon removal target. Given regional biomass and marginal land availability inputs and a carbon removal target of 0.61 GtCO2/year, the minimum-cost scenario provides negative emissions, with an overall cost of 140 Eur/MWh of bioelectricity generated or 117 Eur/tCO2 removed, without considering revenues from selling the electricity produced. On the other hand, minimizing environmental impacts increased costs by 45% relative to the first scenario, but further improved the environmental performance by 23%.
Highlights
In 2015, 196 Parties agreed in the Paris Agreement to hold the temperature rise by 2100 to well below 2 ◦C while ‘pursuing efforts’ to limit temperatures to 1.5 ◦C above pre-industrial levels and finding a solution to the consequences of climate change [1].Insufficient mitigation actions are maintaining record levels of world greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially from fossil fuel combustion and cement production [2], such that existing commitments to reduce emissions will be insufficient to achieve the Paris climate goals [3], even accounting for the dramatic decline in emissions in 2020 resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic [4]
An overview of the four scenarios investigated and the values of the respective objective functions is shown in Fig. 3, in addition to the net carbon dioxide removal [tCO2 ] for each of the extreme Pareto solutions to the problem
During this investigation of the optimal design of a bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) supply chain to deliver a specific amount of carbon dioxide removal, we considered four different objectives: the total cost and three life cycle impacts
Summary
In 2015, 196 Parties agreed in the Paris Agreement to hold the temperature rise by 2100 to well below 2 ◦C while ‘pursuing efforts’ to limit temperatures to 1.5 ◦C above pre-industrial levels and finding a solution to the consequences of climate change [1]. The necessary policies should be agreed upon by the in dividual Members of the EU, allowing each to consider national political and cultural differences as well as priorities [34] This is a core concept already embedded in the NDCs of the Paris Agreement, which encour ages Parties to reduce domestic emissions and adapt to the consequences of climate change, instead of imposing global measures [35]. The whole spectrum of implications of a multi-country BECCS SC on human health and the environment remains unclear To address this knowledge gap, this study provides a detailed opti mization model of a BECCS SC in the EU that selects the optimal configuration to achieve a given global CDR target while simultaneously minimizing impacts on human health, ecosystems and resources. The conclusions provide the reader with the main outcomes of the study and an outlook for future work
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