Assessing the terrestrial capacity for Negative Emission Technologies in Ireland

Abstract

Negative emissions technologies (NETs) and their potential role in meeting emission targets is a rapidly growing and contentious area of climate change mitigation research. The literature ranges in scope from general reviews of NETs options to research and development through applied case studies. Within this field, a gap exists in the application of this growing body of research to the unique limitations and opportunities of a specific nation. Ireland is a small developed island nation in the EU with a unique emissions profile, as 32% of the total comes from agriculture due to the high number of cattle. In this study we aim to assess the potential capacity of terrestrial NETs options for Ireland and review the nation-specific context for their deployment. Despite the proportionally high representation of biochar and carbon capture and storage in the international NETs research, in an Irish context afforestation and bioenergy crops are much more established practices and could readily be considered in possible emission pathways that use NETs. Higher capacities were found for NETs options that are currently unavailable (direct air carbon capture and storage and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage), while options available to deploy at scale (afforestation, soil carbon management and biochar) have capacities limited by saturation of soil carbon stock and have higher risk of reversibility due to impermanence. Hence, while we estimate a reasonable technical capacity for NETs in Ireland, emission reduction remains the highest priority for feasibly meeting a Parisaligned carbon quota for Ireland.

Promises and Pitfalls of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage : Actors' Perspectives, Challenges, and Mitigation Deterrence in Sweden

“…For example, Portugal has potential for BECCS based on emission registries (Arbman Hansing & Fridahl, 2018), such as in the PPI as Portugal takes third place in European pulp production (CEPI, 2022). Ireland is another BECCS contender with recent studies investigating pathways to reach net-zero emissions, but due to concerns about economic impacts and agricultural yields, Ireland is likely to wait until other countries have commercialized BECCS before making any investments (Glynn et al, 2018;McGeever et al, 2019). These preliminary studies show that BECCS is gaining attention on the national level across different geographies.…”

Geological carbon storage in northern Irish basalts: prospectivity and potential

“…The ACDC is based on co-location of geological CO 2 storage and geothermal heat mining, in and below the ALG, respectively. Having secured a CO 2 store, local DACCS and BECCS projects (including from anaerobic digestion) become viable (e.g., McGeever et al, 2019). Moreover, industrial heat from the geothermal plant can improve anaerobic digestion performance significantly (e.g., Diamantis et al, 2016), as well as reduce the costs of DACCS operations.…”