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Copyright © 2018 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120. 48 ELR 10420 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 5-2018 basalt formations (rather than grinding the basalt for accel- erated weathering) have seen notable success.58 D. BECCS The use of biological materials—usually crops or other plants—as an energy source has long held an important role in the energy economy.59 For example, the produc- tion of biomass energy in the United States has included ethanol and methanol produced from agricultural crops as a source of liquid fuels for transportation. The produc- tion of biomass energy also encompasses the burning of wood and other silvicultural products to produce energy from large power plants that might otherwise use fossil fuels.60 Experts remain deeply divided on whether the use of biomass to produce fuels or energy feedstocks actually reduces total GHG releases over the entire life cycle of the fuel’s production.61 The combination of biomass with CCS, however, has emerged as a leading potential technology to produce carbon-neutral energy or net negative emissions power. Under this approach, a power plant operator collects plants or other biomass materials and either converts them into hydrogen or burns them directly to generate energy. The 58. Deirdre E. Clark et al., - , 18 Geophysical Res. Abstracts EGU2016-14713-1 (2016) (rapid incorporation of CO2 from geothermal power facility into basaltic formation). 59. One form of biological capture of carbon for sequestration—biochar—will not be discussed in detail in this Article. Biochar results from the combus- tion of biomass at a relatively low temperature (300-600°C) without oxygen to form charcoal. This form of organic carbon is relatively stable, and the conversion of biomass into biochar would slow the release of GHGs to the atmosphere via decomposition. The biochar would be added to soil as a conditioner for agricultural purposes. The classification of biochar as a NET, however, raises difficulties. First, the production of biochar yields less net useable energy per unit of carbon emitted to the atmosphere than does combustion of the same material. Combusting the biomass to produce energy therefore would offset more fossil fuel and reduce GHG emissions more than using it as biochar feedstock. For these reasons, the NAS chose to exclude biochar from consideration as a NET. NAS Report, supra note 11, at 39. The use of biochar as a GHG reduction technique is discussed in Peter Lehner & Nathan A. Rosenberg, , 47 ELR 10845 (Oct. 2018). 60. In the United States, woody biomass is often used on-site by industrial op- erators who rely on pulp feedstocks (e.g., paper and furniture production) and for small-scale power production in agricultural operations and rural communities. The use of biomass production in Europe occurs on a larger scale in part as a GHG mitigation strategy. , Envtl. & Energy Study Inst., May 12, 2017, http://www.eesi.org/articles/view/despite-biomass-provisions-in- omnibus-biomass-woes-far-from-over. Congress recently directed federal agencies to treat biomass energy production as a carbon-neutral source of power, but it remains unclear whether this exemption will materially benefit the industry in light of recent federal efforts to rescind GHG emissions re- strictions. Id.; see also Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, Pub. L. No. 115-31, §428, 131 Stat. 135. 61. The debate over the GHG benefits of corn-based ethanol fuels in the United States, for example, continues unabated. Compare U.S. Department of Ag- riculture, A Life-Cycle Analysis of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn-Based Ethanol 4-6 (2017) (GHG emissions from corn-based ethanol in the United States are 43% lower than gasoline when measured on an energy-equivalent basis), with John M. DeCicco et al., Carbon Bal- , 138 Climatic Change 667 (2016) (U.S. biofuel use resulted in a net increase, rather than a decrease, in CO2 emissions). power plant then captures the GHG emissions from the burning process and permanently sequesters them, typi- cally by injecting them in a nearby geological formation or including them in a carbon-based product (e.g., cement).62 Because current mitigation efforts have yielded insufficient GHG reductions to meet the Paris Agreement’s global tem- perature target of 2°C (much less its aspirational goal of 1.5°C), almost all of the IPCC model runs that show a high likelihood of attaining those targets rely on the extensive use of BECCS.63 The growing focus on BECCS has raised concerns that this technology could have unexpected and damaging side effects. In particular, the increasing reliance on BECCS in strategies to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals has spurred warnings that the broad deployment of BECCS could disrupt or damage agriculture, water sup- plies, ecosystems, and fertilizer supplies.64 For example, the use of BECCS to remove 600 Gt CO2 by 2100 (a median estimate) would likely require the dedication of 430 to 580 million hectares of land to crops solely for CO2 removal— nearly one-half the land area of the United States, or one- third of the current total arable land on earth.65 This enormous commitment of land surface to BECCS would create conflicts with agricultural needs for a grow- ing global human population,66 biodiversity protection,67 albedo modification,68 and sustainable land use. The heavy use of BECCS in conjunction with current global land use patterns for agriculture would also require the elimina- tion of the majority of natural ecosystems.69 It would also demand vastly increased use of nitrogen fertilizers that, in combination with existing agricultural fertilizer use, would add to the current exceedance (by a factor of two) of the 70 suggested planetary boundary for nitrogen. This use of nitrogen fertilizer would, ironically, also lead to substantial additional emissions of non-CO GHGs.71 2 62. Daniel L. Sanchez et al., , 5 Nature Climate Change 230, 231-34 (2015). 63. Anderson & Peters, supra note 5, at 183 (“Although BECCS, like all neg- ative-emission technologies, is subject to scientific and political uncertain- ties, it dominates the scenario landscape. Yet, as recognition of the ubiq- uitous role of BECC in mitigation scenarios has grown, so have concerns about its deployment.”). 64. Kate Dooley & Sivan Kartha, - mate Mitigation and Impacts on Sustainable Development, 18 Int’l Envtl. Agreements: Politics, L. & Econ. 79-98 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10784-017-9382-9. 65. Phil Williamson, Removal Methods, 530 Nature 153, 154 (2016). 66. Christopher Field & Katharine Mach, , 356 Science 706, 707 (2017) (in its latest report, the IPCC identified 116 integrated assessment models that had a 66% or better chance of limiting global warming to 2°C by 2100, and more than 101 used carbon dioxide removal (CDR)—mostly BECCS—at levels with median commitment of 12 billion tons annually, which would require land use approaching 80% of total global cropland or up to 8% of the earth’s total land area). 67. Williamson, supra note 65, at 154 (widespread reliance on BECCS to reach the 2°C goal would cause a loss of terrestrial species by 2100 that would ex- ceed losses from a temperature increase of 2.8°C above pre-industrial levels). 68. Lena R. Boysen et al., The Limits to Global-Warming Mitigation by Terrestrial Carbon Removal, 5 Earth’s Future 463, 470 (2017). 69. Id. at 468. 70. Id. at 470. 71. Id. at 468.PDF Image | NET Legal Pathways
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