Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage in the Upper Missouri River Basin: Farm-Level Economic Implications.

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a negative emission strategy that can help reduce anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. When bioenergy crops (e.g., corn) are processed into energy (e.g., ethanol), CO₂ can be captured, transported, and stored permanently underground in geologic formations. To achieve negative CO₂ emissions globally, however, BECCS must be adopted at regional scales. Adopting regional-scale BECCS practices will affect farm-level economics more than just changes in per-acre profitability, therefore whole-farm profitability will be, in part, determined by changes to entire cropping patterns and farming techniques. Farm-level implications from adopting BECCS remain unclear. This study models economic implications from adopting BECCS in the Upper Missouri River Basin (UMRB) region of the United States, comparing annual whole-farm profit between representative baseline (status-quo) farms and BECCS farming systems (introduction or expansion of bioenergy crops, and alteration of farming practices, such as including terrestrial carbon capture through increased no-till adoption). We will present our methods for calculating whole-farm profit for both baseline and BECCS farming systems.

Using Level III Environmental Protection Agency Eco-Regions and historic crop mixes in the UMRB, we define four UMRB sub-regions as the Western Basin and Range, the Northern Glaciated Plains, the Central Missouri Plateau, and the Eastern High Plains. These sub-regions will determine representative farming systems based on county-level data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Whole-farm budgets compared between representative baseline and BECCS farming systems profit, therefore showing the farm-level implications from adopting BECCS in the UMRB. We expect that BECCS farming systems will be less profitable than baseline farming systems. The difference in profit, however, will help determine break-even prices or policy incentives needed for farms to voluntarily adopt BECCS practices. Break-even prices needed for bioenergy crops can also help establish market equilibrium between bioenergy-crop producers and processors in the UMRB.