Hydrogen production from sustainable biomass with carbon capture and storage can contribute to carbon-neutrality goals

To limit global warming our economies will likely need to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. Complementing energy efficiencies and electrification, low-carbon hydrogen and atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR) play an important role in pathways identified to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. While the majority of future hydrogen production will come from water electrolysis using wind and solar power, supply chains for low-carbon hydrogen production from biomass resources are overlooked. We design a bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) supply chain that produce low-carbon hydrogen and generate CDR. This supply chain uses technologies that are commercially mature (anaerobic digestion and steam methane reforming) and therefore represent a near-term opportunity to generate CDR and low-carbon hydrogen from biomass resources. Combining process engineering and geospatial analyses, we quantify the technical potential for low-carbon hydrogen from biomass resources, using European nations as a case study. Importantly, hydrogen is produced from sustainable biomass feedstocks that impair neither food security nor biodiversity. Results show that this BECCS supply chain can produce up to 12.5 Mtons of H2 per year (currently ~10 Mtons of H2 per year are used in Europe) and remove up to 133 Mtons CO2 per year from the atmosphere (or 3% of European total greenhouse gas emissions). We then perform a geospatial analysis to quantify transportation distances between where biomass feedstocks are located and potential hydrogen users, and find that 20% of hydrogen potential is located within 25 km from hard-to-electrify industries. This presentation will enable a more comprehensive understanding of BECCS supply chain for low-carbon hydrogen production and will give attention to an important overlooked approach that can deliver net-zero emissions in hard-to-electrify sectors.