Using an integrated assessment model to assess the global implications of differing bioenergy carbon capture and sequestration policy schemes

Abstract:

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a popular topic in climate discourse, as recent modelling research relies on such technologies to model futures in which humanity reaches the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit warming to well below 2˚ C above pre-industrial levels. This paper uses the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) to analyze the economic and climatic effects that varying CCS policy schemes would have under the five shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) given different climate policy goals, particularly the effects of bioenergy carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS). This research builds on past work exploring this topic by expanding the number of CCS options, climate goals, and socioeconomic scenarios considered. This study compares scenarios in which CCS is available for both fossil fuels and bioenergy with scenarios in which it is unavailable for one or both of those fuel types.

This paper finds that the presence of BECCS results in lower carbon prices throughout the model run, but the effect that fossil fuel CCS has on carbon prices was negligible when BECCS was available. BECCS is oft-critiqued for exerting pressure on land and water for the purpose of growing biomass versus food, but this research modeled that the deployment of BECCS has little influence on the share of projected biomass energy consumption. The stringency of climate targets and the socioeconomic context, not differences in policy schemes, mainly determined what share of global energy consumption came from biomass in the model. As BECCS is the only negative emissions technology (NET) in GCAM, besides afforestation, these results could be interpreted as illuminating the contributions of clean energy, fossil CCS, and NETs in general, rather than specifically about BECCS. More research is needed to analyze the impact other NETs would have on the international economy if deployed at scale, but this paper begins to understand the influence that a widely adopted NET would have on the planet.