[Stoves] BECCS

[Dean Still]

A new UC Berkeley study shows that if biomass electricity production is
combined with carbon capture and sequestration in the western United
States, power generators could actually store more carbon than they emit
and make a critical contribution to an overall zero-carbon future by the
second half of the 21st century.

By capturing carbon from burning biomass -- termed bioenergy with carbon
capture and sequestration (BECCS) -- power generators could become
carbon-negative even while retaining gas- or coal-burning plants. The
carbon reduction might even offset the emissions from fossil fuel used in
transportation, said study leader Daniel Sanchez, a graduate student in UC
Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group.

"There are a lot of commercial uncertainties about carbon capture and
sequestration technologies," Sanchez admitted. "Nevertheless, we're taking
this technology and showing that in the Western United States 35 years from
now, BECCS doesn't merely let you reduce emissions by 80 percent -- the
current 2050 goal in California -- but gets the power system to negative
carbon emissions: you store more carbon than you create."

BECCS may be one of the few cost-effective carbon-negative opportunities
available to mitigate the worst effects of anthropogenic climate change,
said energy expert Daniel Kammen, who directed the research. This strategy
will be particularly important should climate change be worse than
anticipated, or emissions reductions in other portions of the economy prove
particularly difficult to achieve.

"Biomass, if managed sustainably can provide the 'sink' for carbon that, if
utilized in concert with low-carbon generation technologies, can enable us
to reduce carbon in the atmosphere," said Kammen, a Professor of Energy in
UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group and director of the Renewable and
Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) in which the work was conducted.

Sanchez, Kammen and their colleagues published their analysis of BECCS in
western North America Feb. 9 in the online journal *Nature Climate Change*.
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