Biomass associated with low upstream emissions offers cost-effective renewable carbon for negative emissions and production of chemicals, aviation and shipping fuels, reducing the need for more costly options like direct air capture. Policy support for sustainable biomass use alongside emerging technologies reduces energy system costs and the risk of missing emissions targets.
Messages for policy
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Biomass provides renewable carbon, which is more valuable than the energy in biomass itself for achieving stringent emissions targets.
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Excluding biomass from the European energy system increases energy system costs by ~20% in a net-negative emissions scenario, similar to excluding wind power or electrolytic hydrogen.
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Policies limiting biomass (residue) use likely need to be accompanied by strong policies to support a greater deployment of clean electricity, electrolytic hydrogen and direct air capture to achieve European emissions targets.
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Carbon capture and bio-electrofuels can increase the value of biomass by enhancing biogenic carbon utilization, thereby moderating biomass demand.
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Bioenergy with carbon capture is more cost-competitive than direct air capture under a wide range of assumptions, which may inhibit direct air capture deployment unless targeted by policy.
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Further reading
Cowie, A. L. et al. Applying a science-based systems perspective to dispel misconceptions about climate effects of forest bioenergy. Glob. Change Biol. Bioenergy 13, 1210–1231 (2021). This review discusses forest bioenergy sustainability from a systems perspective.
Pickering, B., Lombardi, F. & Pfenninger, S. Diversity of options to eliminate fossil fuels and reach carbon neutrality across the entire European energy system. Joule 6, 1253–1276 (2022). This article analyses the diversity of energy system configurations to achieve climate neutrality and finds that limiting biomass reduces flexibility for integration of other technologies.
Ueckerdt, F. et al. C. Potential and risks of hydrogen-based e-fuels in climate change mitigation. Nat. Clim. Change 11, 384–393 (2021). This Perspective discusses priorities and risks of heavy reliance on hydrogen and e-fuel usage.
Sievert, K., Schmidt, T. S. & Steffen, B. Considering technology characteristics to project future costs of direct air capture. Joule 8, 979–999 (2024). This article analyses potential future cost developments of direct air capture.
Kazlou, T., Cherp, A. & Jewell, J. Feasible deployment of carbon capture and storage and the requirements of climate targets. Nat. Clim. Change 14, 1047–1055 (2024). This article analyses feasible growth in carbon capture and storage deployment.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge funding from the Swedish Energy Agency, project nos. 2021-00067, 2023-00888 (RESILIENT) and 2020-004542. This research was partially funded by CETPartnership, the Clean Energy Transition Partnership under the 2022 joint call for research proposals, co-funded by the European Commission (grant agreement no. 101069750). This research was also partially funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the UPTAKE project (grant agreement no. 101081521). The views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. The computations and data handling were enabled by resources provided by the National Academic Infrastructure for Supercomputing in Sweden (NAISS) and the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering (C3SE), partially funded by the Swedish Research Council through grant agreements no. 2022-06725 and no. 2018-05973.
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Millinger, M., Hedenus, F., Zeyen, E. et al. Biomass exclusion must be weighed against benefits of carbon supply in European energy system. Nat Energy 10, 159–161 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01685-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01685-6
