NEGATIVE EMISSIONS via BIO-CCS

 “We are putting ourselves in a scenario
where we will have to develop more powerful technologies to capture emissions
out of the atmosphere." 
-  Christiana Figueres (UNFCCC)
When hydrocarbons(like oil, gas, and coal) are extracted from the ground and then burned for energy, the carbon that was trapped by those resources, which evolved to their present form from decaying biomass that was buried eons ago via natural processes, is released into the atmosphere. It is the unique form in which these hydrocarbons exist that allows for their extremely efficient conversion into energy and this is why modern civilization had achieved so many advances using their power. 

Researchers are working to understand how to convert new biomass from agricultural sources into fuels, which could one day exhibit comparable efficiency to fossil fuels. Biofuels ideally represent a “closed” loop in that their creation implies the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by plants, the conversion of these plants to fuel, and then the return of that carbon to the atmosphere when the fuel is burned and converted to energy.  Today, this loop rarely exists in this ideal form because oftentimes fossil fuels are used throughout the cultivation and fermentation processes (i.e. for transport fuels and for the boiler) in order to constrain costs. However, the potential switch to sustainable “biofuels” from fuels made from limited fossil resources holds tremendous promise. 
Nevertheless, given the amount of energy currently provided by fossil fuels and issues with finding sustainable feedstocks for biofuel production, there are numerous issues that need to be addressed prior to this solution becoming a reality at the scale that is required to impact fossil fuel use and emission trends.   

The fermentation of sugar for bio-ethanol synthesis is also an example of a relatively pure CO2­ emission source, which makes these facilities interesting targets for early CCS demonstrations. What this would mean is that unlike the use of fossil fuels where extracted carbon is burned and released into the atmosphere, a portion of the carbon that is created to make bio-fuels could be captured and stored underground – making these operations effectively carbon negative.  By coupling the biofuel production/ fermentation process with CCS, biofuel development worldwide could become an opportunity to achieve significant reductions in existing CO2 levels. These technologies when combined are aptly named “Bio-CCS” and while they have the potential to contribute substantially to the global goal of GHG reduction; their combination remains to a large extent an unexplored avenue of action.  
The first industrial scale example of CCS coupled with bio-ethanol production is forecast to start early 2012 near Decatur, Illinois in the US, where approximately 1Mt CO2 from a fermentation process will be injected per year and stored in a deep saline aquifer. While the theoretical potential for negative CO2 emissions is huge, the existing global supply of sustainably produced biomass imposes severe limitations on this potential. In August 2011, the IEA GHG and Dutch energy consultancy Ecofys published a joint report on the “Global Potential for Biomass and CCS”. The study projected that the negative emissions potential realizable in 2050 would amount to 3.5 gigatonnes per year given present biofuel feedstocks. However, if the supply of sustainable feedstocks could be increased, the annual potential for CO2 removal from the atmosphere would increase threefold. This implies that innovative and sustainable ways to massively increase that supply of biomass will be vital to unlocking the full emission reduction potential of Bio-CCS. 

Geogreen has been closely involved with the development of a Bio-CCS project concept for the Artenay sugarbeet-based biofuel refinery in central France. Working together,  Geogreen,  BRGM, and the University of Orleans found that negative emissions we indeed possible when CCS was apilied to both the fermentation process and the boiler for the plant.  
In order to effectively mitigate the risk of anthropogenically-diven climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007 suggests that global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions need to peak no later than 2015 and be reduced by somewhere between 50 to 85 percent thereafter. 

However, a growing list of energy and climate experts recognize the need for 
carbon-negative solutions – i.e. systems that withdraw more CO2 from the atmosphere than they emit – in order to achieve global emission reduction targets.   
Geogreen is a member of the European joint taskforce (JTF) on Bio-CCS, which was created by the
European Biofuels Tech-nology Platform (EBTP) and Zero Emissions Platform (ZEP) in early 2011 and is co-chaired by VTT, Alstom, and Bellona. The JTF works to bring together high-level stakeholders and experts from industry, research, and civil society to find the best ways to develop and deploy new technologies and solutions. The main purpose and driving force for the work in the JTF is to find ways to develop and deploy carbon-negative options.