Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS): Global potential, investment preferences, and deployment barriers
Journal article, 2018

Keeping global warming well below 2 °C entails radically transforming global energy production and use. However, one important mitigation option, the use of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), has so far received only limited attention as regards the sociopolitical preconditions for its deployment. Using questionnaire data from UN climate change conferences, this paper explores the influence of expertise, actor type, and origin on respondents’ a) preferences for investing in BECCS, b) views of the role of BECCS as a mitigation technology, globally and domestically, and c) assessment of possible domestic barriers to BECCS deployment. Non-parametric statistical analysis reveals the low priority assigned to investments in BECCS, the anticipated high political and social constraints on deployment, and a gap between its low perceived domestic potential to contribute to mitigation and a slightly higher perceived global potential. The most important foreseen deployment constraints are sociopolitical, which in turn influence the economic feasibility of BECCS. However, these constraints (e.g. lack of policy incentives and social acceptance) are poorly captured in climate scenarios, a mismatch indicating a need for both complemented model scenarios and further research into sociopolitical preconditions for BECCS.

Drivers and barriers

Political priority

Social acceptance

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

Author

Mathias Fridahl

Forum for Reforms, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability (FORES)

Linköping University

Mariliis Lehtveer

Linköping University

Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Energy Technology

Energy Research and Social Science

22146296 (ISSN)

Vol. 42 155-165

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Subject Categories

Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Energy Systems

Climate Research

Areas of Advance

Energy

DOI

10.1016/j.erss.2018.03.019

More information

Latest update

3/29/2021