Bio Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage
Overview
The basic concept is to grow a crop, which will capture CO2 from the atmosphere as it grows, then use the crop to produce energy, and to capture the CO2 produced in the process.
We have to be very careful to make sure that any economic rewards for doing this do not produce unwanted consequences. It should not be financially advantageous for anyone to cut down rainforest in order to grow an energy crop. Using prime food producing land for growing an energy crop should not be encouraged either.
Another point: when simply burning the energy crop, any CO2 capture is only partial, as is any attempted CO2 capture from fossil fuel-burning power plants.
Whether burning the energy crop, or converting it into ethanol or bio-diesel, the concept is better than using fossil fuels, because ultimately the system is recycling the atmospheric CO2 rather than pulling carbon out of the ground to burn it. However, the use of fertilised land for these crops is undesirable. Before counting this as carbon-neutral or beneficial in energy terms, we also need to count the full energy cost of cultivating, fertilising and transporting the crop.
Using genuine bio-waste from the growing of food crops, or using domestic food waste for energy or to liquid fuel production nullifies many of the problems. These initiatives are worth exploring.