BECCS potential in Brazil: Achieving negative emissions in ethanol and electricity production based on sugar cane bagasse and other residues

Abstract

Stabilization at concentrations consistent with keeping global warming below 2ºC above the pre-industrial level will require drastic cuts in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions during the first half of the century; net negative emissions approaching 2100 are required in the vast majority of current emission scenarios. For negative emissions, the focus has been on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), where carbon-neutral bioenergy would be combined with additional carbon capture thus yielding emissions lower than zero. Different BECCS technologies are considered around the world and one option that deserves special attention applies CCS to ethanol production. It is currently possible to eliminate 27.7 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2 emissions per year through capture and storage of CO2 released during fermentation, which is part of sugar cane-based ethanol production in Brazil. Thus, BECCS could reduce the country's emissions from energy production by roughly 5%. Such emissions are additional to those due to the substitution of biomass-based electricity for fossil-fueled power plants. This paper assesses the potential and cost effectiveness of negative emissions in the joint production system of ethanol and electricity based on sugar cane, bagasse, and other residues in Brazil. An important benefit is that CO2 can be captured twice along the proposed BECCS supply chain (once during fermentation and once during electricity generation).This study only considers BECCS from fermentation because capturing such CO2 is straightforward, thus potentially representing a cost-effective mitigation option for Brazil compared to other alternatives. The assessment shows that fuel prices would increase by less than 3.5% due to the adoption of BECCS from fermentation, while increasing investors' revenues are sufficient to compensate for the investment required. With appropriate government subsidies, or by sharing BECCS costs between all car fuels and all electricity supplied by hydro and bioelectricity, the increment in ethanol and electricity prices could be less than 1% for the final consumer. Meanwhile it would supply 77.3% of all cars' fuel (private cars) and 17.9% of all electricity in Brazil.

Enhancing Eco-Efficiency of Agro-Products’ Closed-Loop Supply Chain under the Belt and Road Initiatives: A System Dynamics Approach

“…However, during the study by Smith et al [40] on the supply chain of a bioenergy generated by anaerobic fermentation in Africa, it was found that government subsidies should most preferably cover some of the investments in related infrastructure development. Moreira et al [41] used the ethanol supply chain in Brazil as an example and argued that the optimal government policy for emissions reduction is to pay both upstream and downstream industries a subsidy of $10 USD per ton of carbon dioxide reduction. It is evident that different types of supply chains require different policies on emissions reduction.…”

Striving towards the Deployment of Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS): A Review of Research Priorities and Assessment Needs

“…BECCS encounters big challenges in financing and as a result, no such plants have been currently constructed and tested at scale [19,38]. Capital expenses of BECCS could be alleviated by investment subsidies and thus, financial support is an essential part of future success [39]. Currently, BECCS are mainly deployed in the United States, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, and Canada [40] and overall, there are around 20 BECCS projects globally in different stages, ranging from evaluation over operation to cancellation [19,26,41].…”

“…Particularly, integrated biomass gasification combined cycle (BIGCC) is a promising conversion technology, especially suitable for CCS with a high capture rate [38,43]. Finally, another upcoming and promising option is the technology used to sugar cane-based energy, which converts part of the primary energy to ethanol via fermentation [39].…”

“…There are a number of factors defining a specific conversion route, such as: the nature of the biomass feedstock, the availability of a given technology and the demand for a particular energy product, and more specifically electricity, heat, or fuels [71][72][73][74]. Biomass conversion technologies are characterized by diversity and a wide range of development and deployment stages [34,35,[37][38][39]. Also, many of them have the ability to adapt to different feedstocks and to produce different energy products [34,38].…”

Clean Cane Production Techniques and Environmental Sustainablility: A Review

“…Though Brazil is the largest producer of sugar cane in the world, it is important to look at other cane production strategies used in non-tropical regions of the world (Moreira et al, 2016). The methods of harvesting used are slightly different from hot humid tropical regions.…”