On the potential deployment of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) in Sweden
Time: Wed 2025-01-08 14.00
Location: Kollegiesalen, Brinellvägen 8, Stockholm
Video link: https://kth-se.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XSNme8FRSwu65hWeG4Ki5w
Language: English
Subject area: Chemical Engineering
Doctoral student: Adrian Lefvert , Energiprocesser
Opponent: Professor Teis Hansen, University of Copenhagen, Danmark
Supervisor: Professor Stefan Grönkvist, Energiprocesser; Docent Mathias Fridahl, Linköpings universitet; Docent Anders Hansson, Linköpings universitet
QC 20241128
Abstract
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a chain of technologies to capture, transport and, store carbon dioxide of biogenic origin. There are countries and regions where BECCS could be a suitable part of the climate change mitigation toolbox.
With the aim of investigating the possible deployment of BECCS in Sweden, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Studies of the potential of BECCS often fail to account for the perspectives of the companies that are anticipated to do the implementation. This thesis takes its starting point in those perspectives. The thesis investigates critical factors for the deployment of BECCS and how these inform a possible transition pathway with BECCS. To improve the understanding of the context for the deployment of BECCS, the thesis also investigates alternative ways to capture carbon dioxide from the lime kilns in Kraft pulp mills and the potential to achieve negative emissions with wood-based panels.
The thesis finds that critical factors that can affect deployment include upcoming incentives and regulations, the availability of storage capacity, and the continued use of biomass. In the near to mid-term, any transition with BECCS will be reliant on incumbent actors and their reorientation. A key for BECCS is the framing around generating negative emissions, which is different from the framing of carbon capture and storage (CCS) from 20 years ago as an enabler of business as usual. Generating negative emissions is, however, a concept only possible through boundary selections and assumptions, and everyone using the same guiding principles lowers the risk of double counting and/or omission of emissions.
The thesis also finds that alternative technologies, i.e., oxyfuel combustion and electric arc plasma calcination, can capture carbon from lime kilns without using additional fuel and at the same time generate useful steam. Such alternatives can be important in a future with increased competition for biomass resources. It is also possible to achieve negative emissions with wood-based panels in Sweden. While this can provide an alternative with additional benefits, i.e., material for construction, this thesis finds that it is not possible to achieve negative emissions with wood-based panels on the same scale as the potential for negative emissions with BECCS.