A commercialization strategy for carbon-negative energy

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) envisages the need for large-scale deployment of net-negative CO2 emissions technologies by mid-century to meet stringent climate mitigation goals and yield a net drawdown of atmospheric carbon. These CO2 removal technologies complement lowor zero-carbon energy technologies1,2. Industrial-scale sequestration of CO2 from bioenergy production — a process known as bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS) — can produce fuels, chemicals and electricity while removing atmospheric CO2. Yet there are few commercial deployments of BECCS outside of niche markets, creating uncertainty about commercialization pathways and sustainability impacts at scale3. This uncertainty is exacerbated by the absence of a strong policy framework, such as high carbon prices and research coordination. Here, we propose a strategy for the potential commercial deployment of BECCS via thermochemical co-conversion of biomass and fossil fuels, particularly coal, challenging governments, industry incumbents and emerging players to research and support these technologies. Although biochemical conversion is a proven first market for BECCS, this trajectory alone is unlikely to drive commercialization of BECCS at the gigatonne scale. The early development of BECCS has been focused on biochemical facilities converting sugars to ethanol, a transportation fuel, for use in enhanced oil recovery and large-scale industrial sequestration demonstration4. Yet, biochemical conversion pathways are limited by the market size of fuel products, scale, sensitivity to biomass inputs, and throughput. For example, alcohol fuels from biochemical conversion processes face compatibility issues with existing transportation infrastructure, whereas high lignin content inhibits biochemical conversion. Reaching gigatonne-scale carbon sequestration via this pathway will require at least fourfold higher ethanol production than current levels. Although proposals for large-scale bioenergy deployment focus on the conversion of lignocellulosic feedstocks to liquid fuels, BECCS is also valuable to the electricity sector2,5.