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Michael Obersteiner

Michael Obersteiner

Researcher

Jun 13, 2026

17:09
Can you tell us a little bit more around, A, how these different types of carbon removal are meant to work in theory, but also where the physical limits in each of these cases might show up differently?
17:21
Yeah, yeah.
17:23
Well, let's start with the original one, with BECCS.
17:28
With BECCS, how it works is you have forests or you have dedicated energy plants or crops, they take CO2 through photosynthesis out of the atmosphere, they put it into biomass, and then what you do is you actually convert the biomass into either useful products, or you convert it to energy, and if you convert it to energy, if you burn it, then you take the off gases, you take the CO2, which are in high concentration, out of the chimney if you want and then take the CO2, you compress it and you inject it into geological formations.
18:21
So if you look at this on a net basis, CO2 in the atmosphere, ecosystems take up CO2 and then it ends up in geological formation.
18:33
So that's a net negative technology.
18:37
And here the limits to that technology are basically given by each of these steps.

8 MINS LATER

26:26
Given everything you know about these technologies, what do you think the role of carbon capture should be in kind of reasonable climate strategy and policy? And what should it definitely not be?

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