Negative Emission Potentials in Industrial Sectors Due to Carbon Capture and Biomass

Abstract

Industry, accounting for 24% of total global CO2 emissions, needs deep decarbonization in order to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement. Two important options for CO2 reduction are CO2 capture and storage (CCS) and biomass. CCS in industry has been broadly investigated, while biomass has seen limited attention. In addition, inconsistencies between studies makes comparing the performance of different mitigation options both within and across industrial subsectors difficult. Therefore, an integrated evaluation of the technical performance regarding CO2 capture and biomass using existing commercial technology was performed for five energy-intensive industrial sub-sectors. Harmonization results indicate that negative emissions can be reached in the steel, paper and H2 sub-sectors, while the cement and chemical sub-sectors can reduce their cradle-to-gate emissions by 92% and 68% respectively. The mitigation potential of the combination of CCS and biomass (BECCS) in the investigated sub-sectors could reach up to 13.7 Gt CO2 per year by 2050. Results also indicate that the current production routes used in the iron and steel sub-sector could be adjusted for CCS and/or biomass. Both the blast furnaces and the direct iron reduction mills can reduce their cradle-to-gate emissions by 107-108% when using BECCS with carbon-neutral electricity. This potential could increase to 177% when using more sustainable biomass. The work presented here is part of a larger ongoing analysis of CO2 mitigation potential and avoidance cost in industry.