Striving towards the Deployment of Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS): A Review of Research Priorities and Assessment Needs

Assessing the performance or the implications of climate change mitigation options (CCMOs) is instrumental in achieving research and innovation efficiency in the field of climate change and becomes more imperative considering the Paris Agreement (‘the Agreement’). Many climate scientists already believe that meeting the Agreement’s goals and stabilizing “well-below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels” signals the deployment of currently undetermined and contentious mitigation technologies, such as bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). BECCS is considered one of the most promising negative emissions technologies (NETs) with many scenarios already exhibiting its mitigation potential. However, stakeholders and policymakers remain skeptical about widespread reliance on BECCS questioning its unproven credibility. In this article, we aim at identifying research priorities and assessment needs to intensify the further deployment of BECCS, considering relevant technology associations’ and platforms’ perspectives and insights raised by scientific literature. The main outcome of our study is a list of 10 research priorities along with more specific assessment needs for each priority area. We also focus attention on several implications for potential end-users involved in the field of policy and practice. Overall, our work seeks to bridge the gap between market/industry and academia and to assist policymakers to make better-informed decisions.