Optimal bioenergy power generation for climate change mitigation with or without carbon sequestration

Dominic Woolf; Johannes Lehmann; David R Lee

doi:10.1038/ncomms13160

Optimal bioenergy power generation for climate change mitigation with or without carbon sequestration

Nat Commun. 2016 Oct 21:7:13160. doi: 10.1038/ncomms13160.

Authors

Dominic Woolf¹, Johannes Lehmann^{1

2}, David R Lee^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Soil and Crop Sciences, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
² Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
³ Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.

Abstract

Restricting global warming below 2 °C to avoid catastrophic climate change will require atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Current integrated assessment models (IAMs) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios assume that CDR within the energy sector would be delivered using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Although bioenergy-biochar systems (BEBCS) can also deliver CDR, they are not included in any IPCC scenario. Here we show that despite BECCS offering twice the carbon sequestration and bioenergy per unit biomass, BEBCS may allow earlier deployment of CDR at lower carbon prices when long-term improvements in soil fertility offset biochar production costs. At carbon prices above $1,000 Mg^-1 C, BECCS is most frequently (P>0.45, calculated as the fraction of Monte Carlo simulations in which BECCS is the most cost effective) the most economic biomass technology for climate-change mitigation. At carbon prices below $1,000 Mg^-1 C, BEBCS is the most cost-effective technology only where biochar significantly improves agricultural yields, with pure bioenergy systems being otherwise preferred.