SERVICE 05Negative emissionsSHEET 05 / 05

Zero is not the ceiling.

Bioethanol, biomass power, waste incineration, pulp mills and sugar emit carbon that was in the atmosphere last season, not a hundred million years ago. The plant already pulled it down for you.

0 CO₂ EMITTED CO₂ REMOVED NO CAPTURE CAPTURE, THEN USE CAPTURE, THEN STORE BIOGENIC CO₂, THEN STORE
Fig. 16 · Each route against zeroPer tonne

A removal is not an avoided emission.

Cut a biogenic stream to zero and you have stopped adding. Send it a kilometre underground instead and the tonne leaves the cycle for good. It is the one case where storage does not take you to neutral, it takes you past it.

Where this applies

01

Bioethanol

A fermentation vent is close to pure CO2, which makes it one of the cheapest streams to capture anywhere.

02

Biomass power

The carbon came out of the air within the last growing cycle, so storing it is a removal.

03

Waste incineration

A large share of municipal waste is biogenic, and that share counts below zero once it is stored.

04

Pulp and sugar

Process emissions that are almost entirely biogenic, already concentrated at one stack.

A carbon capture unit beside an industrial plant, tall white columns and pipe racks with trees immediately behind the fence
Fig. 05 · Capture at the plant, storage next doorReference imagery
A cement works at dusk seen from the air, lights on, mist lying in the fields around it
The plant does not stop at nightReference imagery
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