The Renewable Energy Association has  launched a new paper calling for action to be taken on biomass with carbon capture and storage.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has stated that achieving net zero is not possible without greenhouse gas removal strategies. The REA’s paper explores a range of possible policy options that would advance BECCS , including: increasing the UK total carbon price to £50t/CO2 from 2020 to promote rapid emission reductions; supporting BECCS in the Contracts for Difference auctions; and establishing demonstration projects at several scales that use the lowest carbon feedstocks.

The REA urges the Government to establish at least one commercial large-scale BECCS project and several smaller demonstration scale BECCS projects by the late 2020s in order to address residual emissions from hard to decarbonise sectors of the UK economy.

Samuel Stevenson, Policy Analyst at the REA and author of the paper said, “Negative emissions technologies like BECCS will be needed in order to address the projected 90 – 130 MtCO2/yr ‘residual’ emissions in 2050 from difficult to decarbonise sectors such as agriculture, aviation and industry. It is estimated that BECCS could contribute between 24 – 51 MtCO2/yr towards this residual total by 2050.

“However, if the UK wants to deploy BECCS and capitalise on its negative emissions, urgent action is required. Existing policy could be adapted to support BECCS, such as an increased, economy-wide carbon price, a mechanism which properly rewards negative emissions; and enabling BECCS projects to bid for a CfD.”

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