Experts Roast Oz Plan To Burn Biomass And Capture/Store Its Carbon As "A Farce"
Experts have questioned how a controversial energy technology that doesn’t currently exist in Australia could be earmarked as a major source of cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in the Morrison government’s plan to reach net zero by 2050. According to the government’s modelling report of its “technology not taxes” plan, a technique known as BECCS – bioenergy with carbon capture and storage – would be removing about 15% from the nation’s gross greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
But the approach, which involves burning vegetation or waste for power and then capturing the carbon dioxide and injecting it underground, is not one of the priority technologies the government has picked to support. The government’s modelling report has already come under fire from experts for questionable assumptions and an approach which leaves the gas industry to grow while relying on international offsets.
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Energy and climate change program director at the Grattan Institute, Tony Wood, said including BECCS in the government’s planning at all “would be problematic because the report says it’s based on an assumption the technology is not economically viable in absence of incentives. “But there’s nothing in the report that describes what incentives would trigger such an investment. It’s imposed on the modelling without any justification, but it offsets a substantial amount of emissions.
“These are extraordinary numbers to have in a report without any justification of how this would work, how it would happen and what the costs would be.” Tim Baxter, a senior researcher at the Climate Council, said the inclusion of BECCS in the government’s modelling was a “farce”. “The pretence that BECCS will get off the ground at this scale in Australia without careful, intelligent planning is absurd,” he said.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/19/a-farce-experts-dismiss-government-claims-a-controversial-and-unproven-technology-will-cut-emissions-by-15