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BANR

BANR

BANR Team

  • Andy Anderson
  • Nate Anderson
  • Ryan Anderson
  • Bethany Avera
  • Ryer Becker
  • Rick Bergman
  • Emma Bode
  • Randy Brooks
  • Robert Campbell
  • Tony Cheng
  • Woodam Chung
  • Mark Coleman
  • Jarod Dunn
  • Francesca Cotrufo
  • Beth Covitt
  • Trevor Durbin
  • Mark Easter
  • Daren Daugaard
  • Paul Evangelista
  • John Field
  • Kathy Galvin
  • Hee Han
  • John Hogland
  • Paul Hood
  • Kristina Hughes
  • Ryan Jacobson
  • Danielle Jensen-Ryan
  • Rob Keefe
  • Peter Kolb
  • Rick Lawrence
  • Greg Litus
  • Kurt Mackes
  • Ioannis Minas
  • John Moore
  • Amanda Morrison
  • Sylvia Parker
  • Bill Parton
  • Eldor Paul
  • Keith Paustian
  • Agatha Podrasky
  • Yamina Pressler
  • Xuexian Qin
  • Matt Ramlow
  • Timothy G. Reader
  • Kenneth Reardon
  • Chuck Rhoades
  • John Rizza
  • Tina Russell
  • Jessica Sarauer
  • Shannon Savage
  • Rose Shaw
  • Ji She
  • Sarah Strauss
  • Bob Sturtevant
  • Amy Swan
  • Daniel Tinker
  • Martin Twer
  • Tony Vorster
  • Patrick Wilson
  • Brian Woodward
  • Nick Young
  • Home
  • About
    • About BANR
    • Background Information
      • The Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic
      • Making Fuels and Electricity from Wood
      • The Importance of Carbon-Negative Bioenergy
      • Managing Beetle-Kill and Fuels in Western Forests
      • What is Biochar?
    • Research Questions
      • Does the Public Support Beetle-Kill Bioenergy
      • Is Beetle-Kill Biofuel Good for the Climate?
      • How Does Salvage Harvest Change the Forest Landscape?
      • How Much Beetle-Kill is There, and Where?
      • How Might Bioenergy Affect How Beetle-Kill is Managed
    • Collaborators
      • BANR Team
      • Advisory Board
      • NASA DEVELOP
    • BANR Funding
  • Projects
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    • Feedstock Logistics & Processing
    • System Performance & Sustainability
    • Education
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    • Health & Safety
  • News & Events
    • BANR News
    • Events
    • BANR in the Media
  • Extension & Resources
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    • Maps & Spatial Data
    • Infosheets
    • Ask an Expert
    • Beetle Kill & Bioenergy Resources
    • Related Links
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  • Biochar & Bioenergy 2019

The Importance of Carbon-negative Bioenergy

Eiffel tower during the 2015 Paris climate meeting. Image from NPR

Representatives from every country on Earth met in Paris in 2015 to re-affirm the goal of limiting climate change to 1.5 – 2 C, as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process.  Despite the commitments achieved at that meeting, the challenge is a daunting one.  Global greenhouse gas emissions have typically followed worst-case-scenario projections (though recent reductions in the US and China offer some room for optimism).  The math of 2 C is still staggering, and any climate stabilization will involve technology improvements across all sectors of the economy.  Most projections now assume that we will exceed cumulative emissions thresholds, and will have to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in the future to compensate

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). Image from Berkeley News
Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). Image from Berkeley News

Various concepts for such ‘carbon dioxide removal’ or ‘negative emissions’ technologies have been proposed, but the most promising involve bioenergy – the production of fuels, electricity, or heat from biomass.  How does this work?  Plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow, and that carbon is then cycled back to the atmosphere once those plants die and decay, or are consumed by herbivores.  Carbon negative bioenergy involves harvesting biomass, extracting usable energy from it, and then preventing some of that carbon from returning to the atmosphere by either pumping CO2 into geological storage underground (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage, or BECCS), or by storing the solid by-products of bioenergy conversion in soils (e.g., biochar).

CCS equipment at the ADM corn ethanol facility in Illinois. Image from Ethanol Producer Magazine

Most climate stabilization scenarios suggest that we’ll need to widely deploy such technologies over the next decades to reach the 2 C goal, to the point where on the order of 20% of all human energy use is coming from a carbon-negative bioenergy system.  There is great controversy on whether this is possible within the scientific community – it has been called the “World’s Biggest Gamble”, and researchers have questioned the viability and sustainability of such technologies, and whether they might be a distraction from the hard work of reducing emissions.  However, interest in the topic is growing in both academic and industrial circles.  The world’s first commercial-scale BECCS operation was recently inaugurated at a corn ethanol biorefinery in Illinois that had previously sequestered one million tons of CO2 in a successful technology demonstration, and biochar production companies are proliferating in both the US and Europe.

Other Links & Resources:

  • Vox: Can we build power plants that actually take carbon dioxide out of the air?
  • CarbonBrief: 10 ways ‘negative emissions’ could slow climate change
  • University of Michigan Energy Institute Beyond Carbon Neutral initiative
  • Arizona State University Center for Negative Carbon Emissions
  • Center for Carbon Removal

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  • Home
  • About
    ▼
    • About BANR
    • Background Information
      ▼
      • The Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic
      • Making Fuels and Electricity from Wood
      • The Importance of Carbon-Negative Bioenergy
      • Managing Beetle-Kill and Fuels in Western Forests
      • What is Biochar?
    • Research Questions
      ▼
      • Does the Public Support Beetle-Kill Bioenergy
      • Is Beetle-Kill Biofuel Good for the Climate?
      • How Does Salvage Harvest Change the Forest Landscape?
      • How Much Beetle-Kill is There, and Where?
      • How Might Bioenergy Affect How Beetle-Kill is Managed
    • Collaborators
      ▼
      • BANR Team
      • Advisory Board
      • NASA DEVELOP
    • BANR Funding
  • Projects
    ▼
    • Feedstock Supply
    • Feedstock Logistics & Processing
    • System Performance & Sustainability
    • Education
    • Extension & Outreach
    • Health & Safety
  • News & Events
    ▼
    • BANR News
    • Events
    • BANR in the Media
  • Extension & Resources
    ▼
    • Publications
    • Webinars & Videos
    • Maps & Spatial Data
    • Infosheets
    • Ask an Expert
    • Beetle Kill & Bioenergy Resources
    • Related Links
  • Education
    ▼
    • About Us
    • K-12 Resources
    • Undergraduate and Graduation Education
  • Connect
    ▼
    • E-Newsletter Sign-up
    • Social Media
    • Ask an Expert
  • Biochar & Bioenergy 2019