Some energy services and industrial processes-such as long-distance freight transport, air travel, highly reliable electricity, and steel and cement manufacturing-are particularly difficult to provide without adding carbon dioxide (CO) to the atmosphere. Rapidly growing demand for these services, combined with long lead times for technology development and long lifetimes of energy infrastructure, make decarbonization of these services both essential and urgent. We examine barriers and opportunities associated with these difficult-to-decarbonize services and processes, including possible technological solutions and research and development priorities. A range of existing technologies could meet future demands for these services and processes without net addition of CO to the atmosphere, but their use may depend on a combination of cost reductions via research and innovation, as well as coordinated deployment and integration of operations across currently discrete energy industries.

SignificanceCarbon dioxide removal through the permanent sequestration of biogenic CO2 is a critical technique for climate change mitigation, but most bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies are technically immature or commercially unavailable. In contrast, examples of CCS of biogenic CO2 resulting from fermentation emissions already exist at scale. Here, we evaluate low-cost, commercially ready sequestration opportunities for existing biorefineries in the United States. We find that existing and proposed financial incentives suggest a substantial near-term opportunity to catalyze the growth of CCS infrastructure, improve the impacts of conventional biofuels, support development of carbon-negative biofuels, and satisfy low-carbon fuel policies.

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To the Editors-Sanchez et al. 1 provide a viable technological roadmap for using biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) in the western United States 1. However, they oversimplify emissions accounting by assuming a zero or negative carbon emissions factor. Accounting for total lifecycle emissions is perhaps the greatest challenge in deploying biomass (in solid, gaseous, or liquid form) to reduce carbon emissions 2,3. When utilized to generate electricity, emissions sinks and sources for biomass occur in two different sectors. As plants grow, they take up CO 2 and store it. When combusted, the stored CO 2 is

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is a Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technology that will likely be necessary to reach global net-zero carbon dioxide emission goals. In order to...

SignificanceBioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is widely utilized in ambitious climate mitigation scenarios as a negative-emissions technology. However, the future technical potential of BECCS remains uncertain. Two significant deployment barriers that have largely been overlooked by previous studies are the suitability of existing storage sites and the availability of transportation of biomass and/or CO2. This study assesses the near-term deployment potential of BECCS in the United States in the absence of long-distance transportation networks. Considering these constraints, 30% of the projected available 2020 biomass resources can be utilized for BECCS, yielding a negative-emissions potential of 100 Mt CO2⋅y−1. The analysis further pinpoints areas with colocated resources that could be prioritized for near-term deployment of BECCS.

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, spurred by the 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, net zero emission targets have emerged as a new organizing principle of climate policy. In this context, climate policymakers and stakeholders have been shifting their attention to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as an inevitable component of net zero targets. The importance of CDR would increase further if countries and other entities set net-negative emissions targets. The scientific literature on CDR governance and policy is still rather scarce, with empirical case studies and comparisons largely missing. Based on an analytical framework that draws on the multi-level perspective of sociotechnical transitions as well as existing work on CDR governance, we gathered and assessed empirical material until early 2021 from 9 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) cases: the European Union and three of its Member States (Ireland, Germany, and Sweden), Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Based on a synthesis of differences and commonalities, we propose a tripartite conceptual typology of the varieties of CDR policymaking: (1) incremental modification of existing national policy mixes, (2) early integration of CDR policy that treats emission reductions and removals as fungible, and (3) proactive CDR policy entrepreneurship with support for niche development. Although these types do not necessarily cover all dimensions relevant for CDR policy and are based on a limited set of cases, the conceptual typology might spur future comparative work as well as more fine-grained case-studies on established and emerging CDR policies.

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