Decades of Increased Emissions from Forest-Fueled
BECCS
Timothy Searchinger 1
ORCID Email
Liqing Peng? Email
Daniella Russi
Charles Canham 4
ORCID
へ
1 Princeton University,
2 Hong Kong University,
3 World Resources Institute,
4 Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies
This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal.
V
https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9038129/v1
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License
Abstract Should climate policies encourage bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) using wood from existing forests? Although mitigation pathways in integrated assessment models often rely on BECCS fueled by energy crops, European governments are moving to financially support BECCS sourced instead from existing forests. To estimate its emissions and financial costs, we develop a model that transparently tracks carbon flows from forest to end use and allows policymakers to easily alter assumptions. Modeling multiple wood- sourcing scenarios, we find that BECCS is unlikely to generate negative emissions within 150 years, is likely to produce higher emissions for decades than using natural gas without carbon capture and is likely to increase electricity costs by ~ 3.5-fold. Only limited improvements occur even if half of the wood comes from residues and half from fast-growing plantations. These results reflect that most emissions occur before the power plant and therefore cannot be captured, and that wood has twice the carbon intensity of natural gas and generates electricity less efficiently. These results counsel against emerging BECCS policies, and our easy-to-use model
allows policymakers to evaluate results and different scenarios themselves.
In a preprint, researchers from Princeton, Hong Kong U, & WRI find that the form of carbon removal called "bioenergy w carbon capture & storage," or BECCS, is "likely to produce higher emissions for decades than using natural gas without carbon capture."
This is a Big Deal because the IPCC...
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