Imperial College London
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Professor Niall Mac Dowell FIChemE FRSC

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policy

Professor of Future Energy Systems
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 9298niall Website

 
 
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Location

 

16 Prince's GardensSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Fajardy:2018:10.1039/c7ee03610h,
author = {Fajardy, M and Mac, Dowell N},
doi = {10.1039/c7ee03610h},
journal = {Energy and Environmental Science},
pages = {1581--1594},
title = {The energy return on investment of BECCS: is BECCS a threat to energy security?},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c7ee03610h},
volume = {11},
year = {2018}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Compliance with long term climate targets whilst maintaining energy security is understood to relyheavily on the large-scale deployment of negative emissions technologies (NETs).  One option,Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is prominent in Integrated AssessmentModels (IAMs), with projected annual contributions of 8 – 16.5 GtCO2/yr of atmospheric carbondioxide removal whilst contributing 150 – 300 EJ/yr, or 14 to 20% of global primary energy supply,in 2100.  Implicit in these scenarios is the assumption that BECCS is a net producer of energy.However, relatively energy intensive biomass supply chains and low power generation efficiencycould  challenge this  ubiquitous assumption.   Deploying an  energy  negative technology  at thisscale could thus represent a threat to energy security. In this contribution, we evaluate the energyreturn on investment (EROI) of an archetypal BECCS facility. In order to highlight the importanceof biomass sourcing, two feedstock scenarios are considered:  use of domestic biomass pellets(UK) and import of biomass pellets from Louisiana, USA. We use the Modelling and Optimisationof Negative Emissions Technologies (MONET) framework to explicitly account for growing, pre-treating, transporting and converting the feedstock in a 500 MW BECCS facility.  As an example,we illustrate how the net electricity balance (NElB) of a UK-based BECCS facility can be eitherpositive or negative, as a function of supply chain decisions. Power plant efficiency, fuel efficiencyfor transport, transport distance, moisture content, drying method, as well as yield were identifiedas key factors that need to be carefully managed to maximise BECCS net electricity balance.  Akey insight of this contribution is that, given an annual carbon removal target, increasing BECCS’power  generation  efficiency  by  using  a  more  advanced  biomass  conversion  and  CO2capturetechnology could improve BECCS net electricity balance, but at the cos
AU  - Fajardy,M
AU  - Mac,Dowell N
DO  - 10.1039/c7ee03610h
EP  - 1594
PY  - 2018///
SN  - 1754-5692
SP  - 1581
TI  - The energy return on investment of BECCS: is BECCS a threat to energy security?
T2  - Energy and Environmental Science
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c7ee03610h
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/57243
VL  - 11
ER  -
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