BECCS Negative-Emissions Power Plant

Plant Parameters

Biomass feed rate 800 kt/yr

Capture efficiency 90%

Capacity factor 85%

Simulated time speed 4 yr/s

Live Readouts

Capture rate

0 t/h

Elapsed time

0.0 yr

Cumulative net CO2 removed

0.00 Mt

Reservoir fill: 0.0%50 Mt cap.

How it works

BECCS pairs biomass power generation with carbon capture and storage. Fast-growing biomass absorbs atmospheric CO2 as it grows; burning it for power releases that same carbon back — making combustion itself roughly carbon-neutral. Capturing a fraction of the flue-gas CO2 before it reaches the atmosphere, and storing it underground, turns that neutral cycle net-negative:

Gross CO2 = feed_rate × emission_factor × capacity_factor
Captured  = Gross CO2 × capture_efficiency
Vented    = Gross CO2 − Captured   (biogenic; reabsorbed by regrowth ⇒ ~neutral)
Net removal = Captured              (this is the negative-emissions term)

Using an emission factor of 1.5 t CO2 per tonne of dry biomass combusted (typical for woody/herbaceous feedstock), the plant's instantaneous capture rate and cumulative removal since start are computed continuously from the three sliders and the simulated elapsed time.

Biomass feed rate — dry tonnes of feedstock burned per year at full load.
Capture efficiency — fraction of flue-gas CO2 pulled out in the amine absorption column (real plants: 85–95%).
Capacity factor — fraction of the year the plant actually runs at rated load.
Reservoir fill — captured CO2 accumulating in a saline aquifer / depleted reservoir, shown against an illustrative 50 Mt local storage cap.

Real-world relevance: the IPCC's 1.5°C pathways rely on gigatonne-scale BECCS deployment by 2050 for net-negative emissions; the same amine-scrubbing capture stage modeled here is shared with fossil-fuel CCS, the difference being biogenic vs. fossil carbon in the flue gas.

Biomass feedstock Flue-gas CO2 (uncaptured) Captured CO2 → storage

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