Expert projections on the development and application of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage technologies

Heimann, Tobias et al. Article — Published Version Expert projections on the development and application of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage technologies Environmental Research Letters Provided in Cooperation with: Kiel Institute for the World Economy – Leibniz Center for Research on Global Economic Challenges Suggested Citation: Heimann, Tobias et al. (2025) : Expert projections on the development and application of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage technologies, Environmental Research Letters, ISSN 1748-9326, IOP Science, Vol. 20, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ada16f , https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ada16f This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/319917 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ LETTER • OPEN ACCESS Expert projections on the development and application of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage technologies To cite this article: Tobias Heimann et al 2025 Environ. Res. Lett. 20 024059 View the article online for updates and enhancements. You may also like Meeting global temperature targets—the role of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage Christian Azar, Daniel J A Johansson and Niclas Mattsson - Carbon dioxide removal to combat climate change? An expert survey on perception and support Christoph Kerner, Annina Thaller and Thomas Brudermann - A bottom–up regional potential assessment of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage in Germany Mohammad Sadr, Danial Esmaeili Aliabadi, Matthias Jordan et al. - This content was downloaded from IP address 134.245.88.216 on 30/06/2025 at 11:03 Environ. Res. Lett. 20 (2025) 024059 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ada16f OPEN ACCESS RECEIVED 31 March 2024 REVISED 9 December 2024 ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION 19 December 2024 PUBLISHED 4 February 2025 Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. LETTER Expert projections on the development and application of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage technologies Tobias Heimann1,∗, Lara-Sophie Wähling1, Tomke Honkomp2, Ruth Delzeit3, Alessandra Pirrone1, Franziska Schier2and Holger Weimar2 1Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Kiel, Germany 2Thünen Institute for Forestry, Hamburg, Germany 3Department of Environmental Science, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland ∗Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected] Keywords: BECCS, CDR, expert survey, production technology, biomass Supplementary material for this article is available online Abstract Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a crucial element in most modelling studies on emission pathways of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to limit global warming. BECCS can substitute fossil fuels in energy production and reduce CO2emissions, while using biomass for energy production can have feedback effects on land use, agricultural and forest products markets, as well as biodiversity and water resources. To assess the former pros and cons of BECCS deployment, interdisciplinary model approaches require detailed estimates of technological information related to BECCS production technologies. Current estimates of the cost structure and capture potential of BECCS vary widely due to the absence of large-scale production. To obtain more precise estimates, a global online expert survey (N=32) was conducted including questions on the regional development potential and biomass use of BECCS, as well as the future operating costs, capture potential, and scalability in different application sectors. In general, the experts consider the implementation of BECCS in Europe and North America to be very promising and regard BECCS application in the liquid biofuel industry and thermal power generation as very likely. The results show significant differences depending on whether the experts work in the Global North or the Global South. Thus, the findings underline the importance of including experts from the Global South in discussions on carbon dioxide removal methods. Regarding technical estimates, the operating costs of BECCS in thermal power generation were estimated in the range of 100–200 USD/tCO2, while the CO2capture potential was estimated to be 50–200 MtCO2yr−1by 2030, with cost-efficiency gains of 20% by 2050 due to technological progress. Whereas the individuals’ experts provided more precise estimates, the overall distribution of estimates reflected the wide range of estimates found in the literature. For the cost shares within BECCS, it was difficult to obtain consistent estimates. However, due to very few current alternative estimates, the results are an important step for modelling the production sector of BECCS in interdisciplinary models that analyse cross-dimensional trade-offs and long-term sustainability. 1. Introduction Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are continuing to increase, further exacerbating global warming (IPCC 2023). The goals of the Paris Agreement aim to limit global warming to well below 2 ◦C above pre-industrial levels and ideally to 1.5 ◦C. To achieve this, net-zero, and for some countries even net-negative, emissions targets for CO2need to be realized, and other GHG emissions, e.g. methane, significantly reduced by the end of the century (Rogelj et al 2018a, IPCC 2023). In addition to reducing emissions, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) methods are vital for removing existing CO2emissions from the © 2025 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd Environ. Res. Lett. 20 (2025) 024059 T Heimann et al atmosphere and counterbalancing residual emissions in the medium term (Minx et al 2018, Rogelj et al 2018b,2018a, IPCC 2023). If removal exceeds emissions, CDR methods could achieve net-negative emissions in the long term (IPCC 2023). The focus is primarily on the use of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), since BECCS is a crucial element in integrated assessment models (IAMs) that model emission pathways to limit global warming to 1.5 ◦C or well below 2 ◦C, which are a basis for the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (Rogelj et al 2018a, Riahi et al 2022, Zhao et al 2024). In scenarios with average global temperature increases below or equal to 1.5 ◦C, BECCS deployment is estimated to achieve reductions of 3.4–6.8 GtCO2yr−1by 2050. By 2100, this could increase to 5.7–14.9 GtCO2yr−1, depending on the scenario and the possibility of temporarily exceeding temperature targets (Rogelj et al 2018a). When accounting for sustainability criteria, emission reductions through BECCS deployment could be limited to 0.5–5 GtCO2yr−1by 2050 according to Fuss et al (2018). Until now, both research and industry have mainly focused on applying BECCS in industries that use biomass for producing electricity and heat, pulp and paper, or in energy conversion plants that produce liquid biofuel or biogas (Fajardy et al 2019, Rosa et al 2021). There has also recently been increasing research on the technical and economic feasibility of using BECCS in carbon-intensive industries producing cement and steel (Tanzer et al 2020, Cavalett et al 2021, Lopez et al 2022, Agora Industry and Wuppertal Institute 2023). CO2released by converting biomass to bioenergy is captured using carbon capture technology, compressed, transported, and stored in geological formations, preventing it from being released into the atmosphere (Bui et al 2018, Claire et al 2018, Fajardy et al 2019). By substituting fossil fuels in energy production, BECCS reduces CO2emissions and simultaneously offsets residual emissions from hard-toabate sectors by generating negative emissions (Rogelj et al 2015, Bui et al 2018, Claire et al 2018). However, the use of biomass for energy production can have feedback effects on land use, the agricultural and forest products markets, as well as biodiversity (Fajardy et al 2018, Hof et al 2018, Smith et al 2020, Babin et al 2021, Hanssen et al 2021). Furthermore, BECCS might put pressure on water resources since CCS technology is water-intensive and the irrigation of energy crops leads to additional water use (Byers et al 2015, Rosa et al 2020, Stenzel et al 2021, Zhipin et al 2021). On the other hand, studies have concluded that under specific conditions (e.g. type of feedstock, length of rotation, landscape), land use change to biomass production might lead to positive effects on ecosystem services and benefit biodiversity (Holland et al 2015, Donnison et al 2020,2021, Englund et al 2020, Hanssen et al 2021, Hirata et al 2024). These trade-offs and cobenefits along with other aspects of uncertainty, e.g. costs and public acceptance of BECCS, fuel discussions among researchers, policymakers, and the public on the appropriateness of BECCS as a climate change mitigation measure (Fajardy et al 2018, Creutzig et al 2019, Haikola et al 2021, Donnison et al 2023). The first operating BECCS plants are located in North America and Northern Europe. Information on the specific application concepts for these advanced projects is available (Global CCS Institute 2024). One example of a project in an advanced planning stage in the Global South, is the Brazilian biorefinery plant operated by Fueling Sustainability in Lucas do Rio Verde (PR Newswire 2024). Future model assessments support the establishment of large numbers of BECCS production sites in, e.g. subSaharan Africa, as this region possesses vast areas that could provide biomass energy and storage capacities (see e.g. Ricci and Selosse 2013, Hanssen et al 2020a). Given the broad range of possibilities and uncertainties, it is challeging to assess exactly how BECCS might develop over the next decades. It is yet unclear in which countries and areas of application BECCS will be implemented, and sustainability of BECCS might vary by country and sector. It is thus important to obtain additional information to, e.g. differentiate more strongly between the use of different biomass types when modelling BECCS technologies, to be able to capture region-specific effects on biomass demand and production more accurately. Taking the aforementioned into account, interdisciplinary numeric modelling approaches can serve as tools to effectively assess potential trade-offs arising from the large-scale implementation of BECCS. Using economic models, it is possible to analyse future market developments and policy impacts which are difficult to grasp in their complexity (Schier et al 2022). However, these models require tangible information on the sectoral representation of BECCS and related production factors, e.g. biomass feedstock used, carbon capture potential, operating costs, and scalability as input to carry out cross-regional and cross-sectoral trade-off analysis, There are important differences in the estimates of technical aspects of BECCS across the published literature (Daioglou et al 2020), mainly because BECCS sites are currently pre-commercial and only a few pilot projects exist, mainly in North America and Northern Europe (Rosa et al 2021, Global CCS Institute 2022). Morris et al (2019) published production costs in the USA for BECCS in power generation fueled by non-specified biomass. These estimates are used by Fajardy et al (2021), for instance, to model the role of BECCS in achieving different 2 Environ. Res. Lett. 20 (2025) 024059 T Heimann et al global warming scenarios in the Economic Projection and Policy Model framework of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Furthermore, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory provides projections for BECCS deployment and production costs in California (Baker et al 2020) and the USA (Pett-Ridge et al 2023). Abegg et al (2024) conducted expert interviews with scholars on the costs and scalability of BECCS in which the experts assumed higher costs and lower scalability than the International Energy Agency forecasts (IEA 2021) but without differentiating in feedstock, BECCS technology or region. In addition, literature reviews in several recent papers present cost estimates and capture potential of BECCS (Fuss et al 2018, Rueda et al 2021, Freer et al 2022, Abegg et al 2024). Due to uncertainties in operational factors, the future mitigation potential of BECCS is also increasingly questioned (Grubler et al 2018, Riahi et al 2021). Fuss et al (2018) find large variations in estimates due to uncertainties relating to assumed biomass feedstock and BECCS technology. Finally, Creutzig et al (2019) and Zhao et al (2024) both argue that BECCS net CO2removal efficiency depends mainly on the life-cycle emissions of the respective feedstock and the efficiency of BECCS plants. An option for deriving information on future BECCS implementation refers to the projections made in climate change mitigation modelling, which rely mostly on IAMs (Calvin et al 2021). IAMs contribute to the assessment of climate policies and enhance the understanding of the importance of cost-effectiveness information for new technologies, amongst other things (Weyant 2017). However, uncertainties and diverging assumptions across modelling studies give rise to differences in estimates of BECCS potential (Calvin et al 2021). Daioglou et al (2020) provide a concise overview of the deployment of bioenergy technologies in IAMs and discuss the techno-economic assumptions. In particular, the increase in capital costs in bioenergy systems caused by implementing CCS technologies vary across IAMs, ranging from 2%–242%, and 10%– 315% for electricity and liquid biofuels respectively (Daioglou et al 2020). Based on sensitivity analyses, Muratori et al (2020) found that uncertainties in technical assumptions in particular affect the timing and rate of deployment of BECCS. IAMs supply projections of biomass feedstock result from an interplay of biomass production characteristics and bioenergy demand, which themselves are influenced by numerous model characteristics (Rose et al 2022). In addition, IAMs may differ considerably regarding energy crop yields (Rose et al 2022, Whitaker et al 2018, Slade et al 2014), which could be exacerbated by uncertainties regarding the impact of climate change (Smith et al 2019). Land-use competition also affects the costs and supply of biomass feedstock (Smith et al 2016, Kalt et al 2020), alongside significantly varying factors (see Rose et al 2022 for an overview), leading to divergent BECCS projections. Retrospective reviews of technological forecasts show that many of these tend to be imprecise and overconfident (Savage et al 2021). Experts can be subject to biases that may affect the selection of parameters and values used in forward-looking modelling exercises (Bonaccorsi et al 2020). Thus, the widely divergent and imprecise information in the literature regarding estimates on biomass use, scalability, and operating costs of BECCS is an obstacle to the sound integration of this technology in numerical simulation models (Daioglou et al 2020). This study aims to determine which parameter values from the current literature can be reasonably used for model-based assessments and which parameters require further research. To address this, we conducted an online survey with international industry, research, and policy experts active in the field of BECCS. The objective of the survey was to gain more precise estimates on the technical aspects of different BECCS technologies, focusing on future operating costs, capture potential, scalability, and biomass use. This survey provides an expert assessment of the current literature, including estimates and projections that have recently been published, to deliver justifiable parameters to be used in economic modelling. Moreover, we asked for expert opinions on the future technological development of BECCS to narrow down the wide range of estimates found in the literature, thus obtaining more consistent results to be able to refine economic modelling and trade-off analyses. While most IAMs present BECCS model results for 2050 onwards, we also requested estimates for 2030 and 2040, and for potential learning rates to allow for dynamic modelling when conducting trade-off analyses using computable general equilibrium or partial equilibrium models. Finally, we highlight areas in which experts’ opinions are still incongruent, call for additional research, and identify the parameters that should be subject to rigorous sensitivity analyses when included in economic models. 2. Method For this survey we invited experts with technical expertise from the value chains of CCS, BECCS, or bioenergy production. To find suitable experts, we screened scientific papers, searched for contacts at universities, scientific institutes, and consultancies, and approached companies conducting or planning BECCS field trials. The survey was conducted anonymously, and the initial invitation and two reminders were sent by email to 145 international experts in December 2021 with a response rate of 16% (N=25). Further information on survey design 3 Environ. Res. Lett. 20 (2025) 024059 T Heimann et al Table 1. Overview of survey questions and answer options. Questions Answer options Potential of BECCS - How would you estimate the potential for market development of BECCS for regions in Europe, Asia, Australia and Oceania, America, Middle East and Africa until 2040? Rating scale: very high potential, high potential, low potential, very low potential, no potential - Rank the following location factors according to their importance for deploying BECCS: closeness to biomass feedstock, closeness to key market for produced products, closeness to CO2storage site, usage of existing energy production infrastructure. Ranking: 1 =very important to 4 =least important Suitable biomass sources for BECCS - Please rank the following energy crops according to their importance as biomass sources for BECCS: roundwood, wood residues, wood pellets, short-rotation coppice, grasses, sugar crops, oil crops. Ranking: 1 =very important to 7 =least important - How likely is it that the production of the following biomass types (vegetable oils/lignocellulose/grains/ sugarcane) for the biofuel industry will be coupled with CCS by 2030? Rating scale: very likely, rather likely, rather unlikely, very unlikely - Please rank the following areas of application (liquid biofuel industry/thermal power generation/pulp and paper industry) according to their suitability for using short rotation coppice. Ranking: 1 =very suitable to 3 =least suitable Cost estimations of BECCS - Please indicate your estimate for the total costs of CCS applied in the liquid biofuel industry, biomass-fueled thermal power generation and pulp and paper industry. Estimates in USD/tCO2 - What cost efficiency gains due to technological progress do you expect for CCS in the liquid biofuel industry, biomass-fueled thermal power generation and pulp and paper industry compared to your estimated current costs until 2030/2040/2050? Estimates for each industry and each year in % - What are the total cost shares of CCS for the liquid biofuel industry, biomass-fueled thermal power generation and pulp and paper industry? Estimates for capital, labor, energy requirements, external services and maintenance. Shares must total 100%. Application of CCS and capture potential - How likely is it that CCS will be applied in the liquid biofuel industry, biomass-fueled thermal power generation and pulp and paper industry? Rating scale: very likely, rather likely, rather unlikely, very unlikely - Which share of the total carbon content of biomass used for the liquid biofuel industry (corn ethanol, lignocellulosic ethanol, biodiesel), biomass-fueled thermal power generation and pulp and paper industry can be captured by CCS? Estimates in % - Please indicate your estimate for the global CCS potential of the liquid biofuel industry, biomass-fueled thermal power generation and pulp and paper industry by 2030/2040/2050. Estimates in MtCO2 can be found in the supplementary material (S1). Despite looking for experts on the global level, countries of the Global South were underrepresented in our expert pool. Sovacool (2023) has already highlighted how the discourse on carbon removal potential has been limited mainly to the Global North without adequately representing countries of the Global South. After noticing the bias in our first survey, we conducted an additional survey round inviting further experts only from countries of the Global South. The survey was sent to 37 additional experts in October 2023, of which seven experts responded (for a total of N=32 and a response rate of 18% for both surveys). In the additional survey, we specifically aimed to include experts from China, given the number of recent relevant publications by Chinese scholars (e.g. Huang et al 2020, Xing et al 2021, Weng et al 2021). More than half of the emails were not transmitted and the remaining invitees did not reply. Thus, regrettably, we were unable to include expertise from China. Table 1provides an overview of the survey questions presented to the experts. Most answer options entailed either rating scales (e.g. ‘very suitable’ to ‘very unsuitable’), in order to assess the attitudes and opinions of the experts, or ranking options (‘1 =very important’ to ‘7 =least important’), to classify preferences (Moors et al 2016, Del Grande and Kaczorowski 2023). For the questions on technical estimates, the experts could choose from several possible answers of 4 Environ. Res. Lett. 20 (2025) 024059 T Heimann et al Table 2. Number of respondents by disciplinary background and region. Humanities and business administration Environmental science Chemical engineering Other engineering Other natural sciences Na North America 3 1 2 1 1 5 Europe 4 2 2 4 2 11 Rest of the World 2 2 1 1 7 9 Not stated 3 3 3 3 4 7 Total 12 8 8 9 14 32 aMultiple answers on disciplinary background were possible, so that the sum of columns is not equal to N. North American nations represented in this survey are Canada and the USA; Europe includes the UK, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany; the Rest of the World includes India, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil, which are further defined as countries in the Global South, and South Korea. ‘Humanities and business administration’ includes economics, business administration, political sciences and psychology; ‘Chemical engineering’ and ‘Environmental science’ include only chemical engineering and environmental science, respectively; ‘Other engineering’ includes mechanical engineering, material science, energy engineering, techno-economic system dynamics, and environmental engineering; ‘Other natural sciences’ includes natural science, agriculture science, and geography. estimates from the literature. More detailed information on each question and its answer option is provided in the supplementary material (S1). Table 2lists the geographical location of primary employment and the disciplinary background of the respondents. Further information on the experts, i.e. their expertise and working experience, are presented in the supplementary material (S1). 3. Results 3.1. Expectations regarding the implementation of BECCS As shown in figure 1, respondents consider the highest development potential for implementing BECCS by 2040 in the USA, Canada, and the European Union (EU), followed by the United Kingdom (UK), Brazil, and China. At least 40% of the respondents rate the potential for each of the regions as high or very high. Whereas the EU, UK, USA and Canada have the lowest variation in the assessment and the lowest share of respondents answering ‘do not know,’ the opposite is true for China. Here, the variance in responses and the share of respondents choosing the ‘do not know’ option is among the highest of all regions, thus demonstrating a high degree of uncertainty. For all regions besides the European countries, Brazil, the USA, and Canada, more than 40% of the respondents are uncertain regarding development potential. Development potential relates only to the establishment of a BECCS production site because biomass may be sourced from other regions, and carbon can be transported to other regions. However, transport costs for biomass and carbon may affect the assessment of the regional development potential for establishing BECCS production sites. Related to this, figure 2presents the relevance of distance to biomass production and carbon storage for the location of a BECCS production site, and shows that there is no consensus on which location factor plays the most important role for BECCS sites. A paired t-test confirms that there are no significant preferences between ‘Usage of existing energy production facilities’ over ‘Closeness to CO2storage sites’ and ‘Closeness to biomass feedstock.’ However, whereas the importance of ‘Usage of existing energy production facilities’ and ‘Closeness to biomass feedstock’ have the highest ranking for 1 and 3 (not statistically differentiable), ‘Closeness to CO2storage sites’ has one median for 2. Differences between respondents from the Global North and Global South are observed in preferences for ‘Closeness to CO2storage site’ and ‘Usage of existing energy production facilities.’ In contrast to the experts from the Global North, those from countries in the Global South significantly (p<0.05) rate ‘Closeness to CO2storage site’ as more relevant than ‘Usage of existing energy production facilities.’ All respondents agree that proximity to consumers of energy or fuels is significantly (p<0.01) least relevant. The importance of the respective cultivated feedstocks for BECCS by all respondents is presented in figure 3. A relatively wide range of sources could potentially supply biomass for BECCS. Three main categories can be distinguished worldwide: municipal and industrial wastes, agricultural, forest and wood residues (secondary biomass), and bioenergy crops (primary biomass) (Balaman 2019, Zhang et al 2020, Wu et al 2024). The list of feedstocks is oriented towards the products typically modelled in partial or general equilibrium models. Apart from wood residues, secondary biomass was not included in the survey due to uncertainties in sustainable availability, feedback links, and prices (Hanssen et al 2020b). Including these feedstocks would require additional clarification that exceeds the range of this study, because integrating secondary biomass use in economic models is a challenge on its own. 5 Environ. Res. Lett. 20 (2025) 024059 T Heimann et al 9% 6% 6% 6% 6% 9% 3% 3% 13% 16% 16% 22% 19% 25% 3% 9% 9% 13% 16% 19% 19% 25% 19% 22% 22% 25% 44% 44% 19% 19% 16% 22% 9% 22% 25% 25% 25% 34% 6% 16% 19% 13% 13% 19% 13% 13% 9% 6% 0% 6% 6% 3% 3% 3% 9% 3% 3% 6% 3% 3% 47% 44% 56% 47% 56% 38% 50% 41% 38% 25% 50% 34% 19% 19% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Sub-Saharan Africa Middle East and North Africa Other Latin American countries Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay Other Asian countries India Russia and Central Asia Australia and Oceania Other European countries United Kingdom China (incl. Hong Kong) Brazil European Union Canada and the USA Very high potential High potential Low potential Very low potential No potential Don't know Figure 1. Region-specific potential for market development of BECCS by 2040 (N=32). Note: regions are listed in descending order of mean potential (excl. ‘do not know’). Figure 2. Importance of different location factors for BECCS deployment (1 =very important to 4 =least important) (N=31, one expert did not answer the question). The Kruskal–Wallis test (see Kruskal and Allen Wallis 1952) shows significant differences in the feedstock assessment between respondents from the Global North and Global South. In contrast to respondents from the Global South, experts from the Global North value wood residues and pellets as significantly more important than sugar crops and grains. However, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test (see Wilcoxon 1945) reveals that all respondents agree that grasses, roundwood, and oilseeds are significantly assumed to be least important. Whereas for most feedstocks the area of application is obvious, there are some uncertainties considering short-rotation coppice (SRC), which is ranked in the group of important feedstocks. We therefore asked the experts which possible area of application for BECCS (thermal power generation, liquid biofuel, or pulp and paper industry; see Fuss et al 6 Environ. Res. Lett. 20 (2025) 024059 T Heimann et al Figure 3. Importance of different energy crops as a biomass feedstock or product for BECCS (1 =very important to 7 =least important) (N=25, seven experts did not answer the question). Note: feedstocks are ordered by mean of responses, starting with the lowest mean on the left (excl. ‘do not know’). Figure 4. Likelihood of BECCS implementation by area of application. 2018, Rosa et al 2021) could be the most suitable for SRC. Considering all respondents, no significant ranking was observed; however, taking into account only respondents from the Global North shows that SRCs are preferably used in thermal power generation than in the pulp and paper industry. 3.2. Production technology and costs of BECCS This section presents estimates for the production costs of BECCS. As mentioned above, based on Rosa et al (2021), we identified three areas of application for BECCS: thermal power generation, the liquid biofuel industry, and the pulp and paper industry. The experts were requested to self-identify their expertise and were only asked those questions relating to these self-identified areas of expertise. The questions on production technology and costs contained the same questions for each area of application. We first asked respondents to assess the likelihood of BECCS being deployed in each application area (see figure 4). Around 60% of the respective experts estimate that BECCS is very likely to be implemented in thermal power generation and the liquid biofuel industry. The experts from the pulp and paper 7 Environ. Res. 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