Reaching Net Zero: Does BECCS work?

Current climate efforts are not progressing quickly enough to prevent the world from overshooting the global emissions targets set in the Paris Agreement

Land Biomass Climate change Energy

Richard King and Duncan Brack, 27 February 2020

Attention is turning increasingly to options for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – ‘carbon dioxide removal’ (CDR). Alongside afforestation and reforestation, the main option under discussion is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

This is a process through which the carbon emissions from burning biomass for energy are captured before they are released into the atmosphere and stored in underground reservoirs. However, in reality, BECCS can have many drawbacks, as this animation outlines.

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