BECCS

BECCS (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage) is a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technique that combines two processes: generating energy from biomass (such as wood pellets, agricultural residues, or energy crops) and capturing the CO₂ released during combustion or fermentation, then transporting and storing it in geological formations. Because the biomass absorbs atmospheric CO₂ as it grows, sequestering the combustion emissions can in principle produce net-negative emissions over the full life cycle.

BECCS rose to prominence in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) modelling literature. The IPCC's Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (2018) and the Sixth Assessment Report (2021–2022) found that most integrated assessment pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C rely on large-scale deployment of CDR, with BECCS often a major component alongside afforestation and direct air capture.

The technology is controversial among researchers and negotiators for several reasons:

• Land and water demand: scaling BECCS to multi-gigatonne removals could require cropland comparable to that used for food, raising food-security and biodiversity concerns.
• Life-cycle accounting: emissions from biomass cultivation, harvesting, transport, and processing can erode or eliminate the net-negative claim, depending on feedstock and supply chain.
• Storage permanence and leakage from geological reservoirs.
• Moral hazard: critics, including many civil-society observers at UNFCCC COPs, argue that reliance on speculative future BECCS deployment justifies weaker near-term mitigation.

Operational examples remain limited. The Illinois Industrial CCS project at an Archer Daniels Midland ethanol plant in Decatur captures CO₂ from corn fermentation and injects it into the Mount Simon Sandstone; Drax Power Station in the UK has piloted post-combustion capture on biomass units. Neither approaches the scale envisioned in 1.5°C pathways, and most projected BECCS capacity exists only on paper.