Report finds burning wood for power worse than gas, even with carbon capture

A Nature Sustainability paper finds that burning wood for electricity with carbon capture produces higher CO2 emissions than an equivalent natural gas plant for decades. The study projects wood-based BECCS will not achieve net negative emissions within 150 years and will raise electricity costs by about 3.5-fold. Those findings directly challenge the UK government’s plans to subsidize carbon capture on biomass power plants and force a reevaluation of whether wood-burning BECCS should qualify as CO2 removal.