Biomass-Origin Carbon Capture, Storage and Utilization in Greenhouses: The Co2serre Project in Centre-Val De Loire (France)

Abstract

To achieve the objective of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2ºC, there is a growing need to reduce drastically greenhouse gases emissions and even better to set up also negative emissions. Capturing and storing or valorizing carbon dioxide from biomass origin is a way to obtain negative emissions. The CO2SERRE project investigates techno-economic and environmental feasibility of implementing a “BCCUS” (i.e. CCUS for CO2 of biomass origin) pilot in France, in the Centre-Val de Loire Region. The concept consists in capturing CO2 from a biomass cogeneration plant in Orléans, valorizing it in local greenhouse farms, and storing the unused CO2 in geological reservoirs in the region. In addition to generating negative emissions, this concept promotes local and circular economy. To feed the techno-economic and environmental feasibility assessment, each stage of the CCUS chain is considered and assessed (capture, transport, geological storage, and use in greenhouses). Work carried out so far provides useful insights on technical feasibility of the process. However, the key challenge is the viability of the project on both economic and environmental sides. The LCA and TEA analyses, taking into account the whole CCUS chain, are under development and their outputs will address conditions for feasibility of the CO2SERRE concept. A preliminary assessment of geological storage capacity in the region have shown that targeted reservoir would be able to store the equivalent of the total emissions of the region Centre-Val de Loire. Thus, a longer term perspective for CO2SERRE project is to create a new technical and economic network in the region with platforms gathering CO2 emitter, users and storage.

Keywords: CO2, CCUS, BCCS, carbon from biomass, geological storage, biomass energy, negative emissions, CO2 valorization, greenhouse crop, circular economy