Drax, a major UK biomass energy company, wants to develop biomass plants with carbon capture and storge (BECCS) on a large scale, but a new report depicts Drax as being caught up a ‘swirl of controversy and increased polarisation’, including starkly diverging views between many of the scientists involved in the biomass area. That certainly seem to be the case, with some NGOs also being bitterly opposed to Drax’s current large scale operations.
The report notes that ‘some NGOs now believe that there is no role for unabated bioenergy (i.e. burning biomass without CCS, as currently happens at Drax), and only a very limited role for BECCS at scale. Others acknowledge that there may indeed be a role, but only if certain conditions as to ‘BECCS Done Well’ are strictly complied with’. To explore that possibility, Drax commissioned Forum for the Future to carry out an independent Inquiry into what those conditions for 'BECCS Done Well' might look like, primarily with a focus on Drax in the UK, but with an eye to the wider BECCS scene.
With a huge tonnage of imported wood being burnt, Drax has been labelled as the ‘biggest emitter of carbon dioxide’ in the UK. In a recent House of Commons Select Committee hearing, Will Gardiner, CEO at Drax, challenged this. He said ‘I think the key point for me is that the question of whether carbon dioxide is biogenic or fossil’. The implication is that it’s OK to release CO2 from burning wood, presumably since it will be re-absorbed. But when? And how much? That’s a key issue. Drax has certainly met with criticism in relation to its current environmental performance. However, despite its protestations about the viability of its current wood pellet use, it’s clear that Drax is now keen on negative carbon BECCS. Then at least there should be clear carbon savings, justifying lots of projects.
On the way to that, the report does try to face up to some of the issues raised by NGOs and others. For example, the carbon re-absorption delay issue. It notes the EU Joint Research Centre view that re-absorption can take ‘decades to centuries, to never’, but also says that in its current approach, Drax is just following established accounting rules which assume that the carbon content of fuels is already taken into account in national forestry inventories. It does accept that there are divergencies of view on the role of carbon sinks and stocks, and admits that a move from current accounting rules ‘would have significant implications for Drax’. But in the end it leaves the carbon delay and debt issue open: ‘this debate will clearly run and run’.
That is a little worrying, as are some of the other possibly more fundamental assumptions behind the study. It is claimed that we have left carbon mitigation at source so late that we now have no choice but to go for carbon removal. So all that is left is to choose which way to do it - and BECCS is portrayed as the main contender. Well that may not be the case: we could accelerate renewables faster. Or cut demand. Or even go for nuclear. Only if BECCS was clearly faster/cheaper to deploy could you say there is no other choice, and that’s does not seem to be the case. Moreover, it could be that some of the various natural carbon removal options might be cheaper and easier. However, the report doesn’t look at these options. So, one way or another, its final conclusion that ‘companies like Drax can make a significant and relatively rapid contribution to Net Zero targets’ is a little odd- and narrow.
Drax seem to be in a hurry to get on with it - they want to have 2 BECCS units at Selby by 2027 and seem willing to accept some quite tight legal conditions to get that. They include 100% sustainable certification of feedstock sources, full public disclosure of stack emissions (including SOX, NOX, uncaptured CO2 and capture-solvent derivatives), as well as captured tonnages of CO2 on a weekly basis, with support from taxpayers paid retrospectively on the basis of tonnes of CO2 successfully captured and stored. Some very radical promises.
However, in the haste to get the fine regulatory detail for its projects sorted, the report doesn’t seem to really address some of the key wider issues, such as will CCS actually work effectively? It hasn’t done well so far for gas or coal emission abatement- there have been failures at test plants, like Petra Nova in the USA. And even if it can be made to work, can it really be scaled up to make a significant dent in CO2 levels globally ? That would require a lot of land for the necessary scale and type of wood growth and also a lot of geological space somewhere to store the vast amount of CO2 that would be produced. Is that going to be viable? Quite apart from cost of it all, there are also some other key issues left unexplored. For example, even at the individual plant level, won’t large BECCS plants be operationally inflexible and unable to be used to balance the variable outputs from renewables like wind and solar?
What the report mostly seems to focus on is not wider system development issues like this, but on how Drax can go ahead with its BECCS projects. Although there is some useful wider analysis, at times it’s almost like the justification section of a Drax business plan. Arguably then, leading green Jonathon Porritt, who led the Forum team, may have been a little unwise to get involved with this exercise. But he seems happy enough to promote BECCS- and Drax. And Drax do seem willing to make some concession to the NGOs…
Clearly, there is some support for BECCS. For example, the UK National Infrastructure Commission has seen BECCS as possibly being important as part of a new zero strategy. But the Drax BECCS plan has also attracted objections. So has BECCS generally. No doubt, as Drax says, the debate will continue. There may be a role for biomass for energy production, possibly on a smaller scale and using local diverse bio resources, including wastes, and it is generally true that planting trees is a good idea. But can we really expect to just bury the unwanted carbon from burning them underground and hope it stays there safely for ever?
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In case you are interested, I’ve been awaiting an operation, but my surgery has been been delayed, so I have had time for this post. But the op been rescheduled to happen soon, so there may now be a gap in my postings, depending on how it goes.
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