Negative Emissions Technologies (NETS): Feasibility Study

6. Conclusions and policy recommendations

The NETs feasibility study for Scotland shows that the Maximum Feasible NET potential in 2030 is 2.2 Mt CO₂/year increasing to 6.8 Mt CO₂/year in 2045 (a total cumulative NET potential of 112 Mt CO₂ and corresponding total investment of £4.3Bn), this includes £40Mn CAPEX support from SG. The potential in the next decade is significantly lower than the potential of 5.7 Mt CO₂/year suggested by the CCPu. Under a ‘No Action’ scenario, the achievable NETs potential of 0.2Mt CO₂/year in 2030 increases to 0.8 Mt CO₂/year in 2045.

However, sensitivity analysis shows that increasing the public funding pool from £40M to £100M increases the NETs potential by only 0.8Mt CO₂/year for the SG Action pathway and by 0.3Mt CO₂/year for the UKG Pathway, with an additional 85-90 sites supported to become NET projects (approximately £1M per site). The small incremental volumes are due to the fact that these additional sites (under both pathways) are biomethane and distillery sites with relatively low CO₂ volumes. Supporting the development of NETs on these sites could help launch the NETs industry and infrastructure in Scotland, albeit at a small scale. Carbon Capture Scotland has a technology which is modular in nature meaning it can be more easily rolled out to lower volume sites like biomethane and distilleries thus helping to quickly contribute towards NETs deployment by 2030.

While the majority of NETs potential in 2030 is from existing BECCS EfW, Biomethane BECCS and Fermentation BECCS, in 2040-2045, most of the contribution to NETs is attributed to power BECCS and DACCS with contributions from BECCS industry, BECCS EfW and BECCS hydrogen. BECCS biofuels are expected to have a negligible role in carbon removal in Scotland based on discussions with stakeholders.

Achieving Net Zero targets in Scotland cannot be done without carbon removals and NETs. The deployment of NETs, and CCS facilities in Scotland rely heavily on the development of the Acorn project and the Grangemouth cluster. Due to the high investment costs, financial incentivisation is required to facilitate the deployment of all NETs options. It is recommended not to side-line or ignore any technologies but to prioritise deployment of certain options – including BECCS biomethane and BECCS Fermentation as although they provide low volumes of CO₂ - they provide the “low hanging fruits”. Such options could receive CapEx and OpEx funding to help early deployment and preparing the stage for additional NETs to be demonstrated in a second phase of deployment.

It should also be noted that biomass pyrolysis and permanent storage of carbon in the produced biochar from the process can play a key role in Scotland -small scale cogeneration systems with biochar production can provide several benefits.

In order to facilitate short-term deployment of NETs, expected to be in low volumes, it is recommended that policies are introduced to encourage development of industrial processes which permanently store the CO₂ and can thus contribute to NETs targets – as NETs and CCS are high capital ventures, fiscal support, particularly that which is sector specific should be developed. Processes include for example concrete curing and mineral carbonation amongst others that could add to the NETs potential in the future.

Key policy areas that should be developed to maximise the NETs potential in Scotland:

• UK ETS expansion.
  • This should be expanded beyond electricity generation and aviation and consideration should be made as to how biogenic CO₂ is currently reported on (not currently required to pay for these emissions means there is currently no driver for sites with biogenic emissions to reduce the impact of these emissions.
  • Introduction of a NETs trading scheme.
    • The analysis in this report shows that introducing a NETs trading scheme could significantly enable NETs projects in Scotland.
      • The global ownership of many of the sites within this analysis means that NETs /CCS projects at large-scale sites will have competition across portfolios – Scotland must be an attractive location to develop NETs projects.
• Fiscal support mechanisms.
  • NETs sector specific funding should be prioritised – or if wider funding is made available, ensuring this can be distributed among specific sectors should be a focus.
• Bioenergy/biomass/agriculture strategies should be supportive of NETs.
  • If biomass imports are limited then these strategies need to support short rotation forestry, miscanthus and energy crops development.

The long-term deployment of NETs will involve large volumes of CO₂ being captured and permanently stored from biomass power / CHP and EfW sites. Evidence from countries across Europe show that the combination of biomass and EfW CHP sites with district heating and carbon capture provides an opportunity for improved efficiencies and lower costs, adding to overall greater system value. Future policies should consider prioritising the support of BECCS on CHP and DH sites. This can for example be done through allowing the heat used from the CHP plant and recovered from the CO₂ capture process to be considered as ‘useful heat’ under CHP Quality Assurance (CHPQA) definition. Other criteria which should be prioritised includes lower life cycle impacts (for example, discouraging NETs using imported biomass) and externalities which could arise from wide-scale deployment of NETs (e.g., increased air and water emissions).