CO2 Highways for Europe: Modelling a Carbon Capture, Transport and Storage Infrastructure for Europe. CEPS Working Document No. 340/November 2010

This paper presents a mixed integer, multi-period, cost-minimising model for a carbon capture, transport and storage (CCTS) network in Europe. The model incorporates endogenous decisions about carbon capture, pipeline and storage investments. The capture, flow and injection quantities are based on given costs, certificate prices, storage capacities and point source emissions. The results indicate that CCTS can theoretically contribute to the decarbonisation of Europe’s energy and industrial sectors. This requires a CO2 certificate price rising to €55 per tCO2 in 2050, and sufficient CO2 storage capacity available for both on- and offshore sites. Yet CCTS deployment is highest in CO2-intensive industries where emissions cannot be avoided by fuel switching or alternative production processes. In all scenarios, the importance of the industrial sector as a first-mover to induce the deployment of CCTS is highlighted. By contrast, a decrease in available storage capacity or a more moderate increase in CO2 prices will significantly reduce the role of CCTS as a CO2 mitigation technology, especially in the energy sector. Furthermore, continued public resistance to onshore CO2 storage can only be overcome by constructing expensive offshore storage. Under this restriction, reaching the same levels of CCTS penetration would require a doubling of CO2 certificate prices

Financing Capture Ready Coal-Fired Power Plants in China by Issuing Capture Options

‘Capture Ready’ is a design concept enabling fossil fuel plants to be retrofitted more economically with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies, however financing the cost of capture ready can be problematic, especially in the developing world. We propose that fossil fuel plants issue tradable Capture Options to acquire financing. The Capture Option concept could move CCS forward politically in countries such as China, speed up CCS technology development, help Capture Ready investors diversify risk, and offer global warming investors an alternative investment opportunity. As a detailed case study, we assess the value of a Capture Option and Capture Ready plant for a 600 MW supercritical pulverized coal power plant in China, using a cash flow model with Monte-Carlo simulations. The gross value of Capture Ready varies from CNY3m ($0.4m) to CNY633m ($84.4m) at an 8% discount rate and the Capture Option is valued at CNY113m ($15.1m) to CNY1255m ($167.3m) for two of the four scenarios analyzed

Carbon Catcher Design Report

Overview. The design of the overall Carbon Catcher project can be separated into four distinct systems, each of which is assigned a specialized committee. The committee names and responsibilities are listed below: Air Mover The overall goal for the Air Mover committee is the design of the turbine assembly. As the overall goal of the project is to collect and separate carbon dioxide from the air, one of the most important parts is to actually get the air to pass through the carbon-catching membrane. Passive air would not give a significant enough yield rate to make the carbon dioxide collection rate impactful, thus air must be sucked through a vacuum/turbine. Membrane The goal of Membrain is to create a membrane that can filter out CO2 through various methods. These methods are limited, due to there being such variety, to certain techniques and membrane material types that have been decided, prior, by the committee. Most membranes will be geared towards utilizing temperature and pressure along with gaseous speed and flow rate. In addition, examining certain treatments, such as regeneration of material, and replacements will be looked into as well, to see how it fares in sustainability. Carbon Storer The Carbon Storer committee will design a store and transport system for fluid CO2 after it is extracted from the atmosphere. Primary considerations include geological solutions, cost-effective materials, and analysis methods to improve overall capacity and efficiency. Additionally, the committee will select an environmentally and economically sustainable method of recycling the captured CO2. PyControl The PyControl committee will design a series of sensors and actuators, which will primarily support the sequestration and pipeline systems present in the Carbon Storer Committee and direct air capture system in Air Mover. The design can be broken into four control layers: Input/Output, Field Controllers, Data, and Supervisory. Goal The overarching goal of Carbon Catcher is to design a cost-effective, scalable atmospheric carbon dioxide removal system that is capable of being deployed in a variety of urban environments and may fit a variety of different customer requirements or requests

Balancing climate change mitigation and environmental protection interests in the EU Directive on carbon capture and storage

The EU Climate and Energy Package highlights the potential contradictions between the climate change imperative of reducing GHGs emissions and the importance to maintain environmental integrity. While the package supports climate change mainstreaming, it remains to be seen to what extent it succeeds in achieving internal environmental integration between climate change mitigation and other environment- protection objectives. Directive 2009/31/EC on the capture and geological storage of carbon dioxide (hereinafter the CCS Directive) offers a paradigmatic example of this potential conflict. One of the main regulatory challenges arising from the CCS Directive relates to finding the proper balance between the different interests involved and the not-fully-consistent objectives of environmental protection, climate change mitigation, and energy security. The present article will discuss this regulatory challenge and examine how the CCS Directive’s regulatory framework for CCS permits a combination of the various interests at stake and the giving of proper weight to concerns about environmental protection. The role that the precautionary principle in conjunction with the proportionality principle may have in balancing climate change mitigation and environment-protection interests will be considere

Process intensification for post combustion CO₂ capture with chemical absorption: a critical review

The concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere is increasing rapidly. CO₂ emissions may have an impact on global climate change. Effective CO₂ emission abatement strategies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) are required to combat this trend. Compared with pre-combustion carbon capture and oxy-fuel carbon capture approaches, post-combustion CO₂ capture (PCC) using solvent process is one of the most mature carbon capture technologies. There are two main barriers for the PCC process using solvent to be commercially deployed: (a) high capital cost; (b) high thermal efficiency penalty due to solvent regeneration. Applying process intensification (PI) technology into PCC with solvent process has the potential to significantly reduce capital costs compared with conventional technology using packed columns. This paper intends to evaluate different PI technologies for their suitability in PCC process. The study shows that rotating packed bed (RPB) absorber/stripper has attracted much interest due to its high mass transfer capability. Currently experimental studies on CO₂ capture using RPB are based on standalone absorber or stripper. Therefore a schematic process flow diagram of intensified PCC process is proposed so as to motivate other researches for possible optimal design, operation and control. To intensify heat transfer in reboiler, spinning disc technology is recommended. To replace cross heat exchanger in conventional PCC (with packed column) process, printed circuit heat exchanger will be preferred. Solvent selection for conventional PCC process has been studied extensively. However, it needs more studies for solvent selection in intensified PCC process. The authors also predicted research challenges in intensified PCC process and potential new breakthrough from different aspects

Carbon Capture; Transport and Storage in Europe: A Problematic Energy Bridge to Nowhere?

This paper is a follow up of the SECURE-project, financed by the European Commission to study “Security of Energy Considering its Uncertainties, Risks and Economic Implications”. It addresses the perspectives of, and the obstacles to a CCTS-roll out, as stipulated in some of the scenarios. Our main hypothesis is that given the substantial technical and institutional uncertainties, the lack of a clear political commitment, and the available alternatives of low-carbon technologies, CCTS is unlikely to play an important role in the future energy mix; it is even less likely to be an “energy bridge” into a low-carbon energy futureCarbon Capture, Transport, Storage

The Limits of Liability in Promoting Safe Geologic Sequestration of CO2

Deployment of new technologies is vital to climate change policy, but it invariably poses difficult tradeoffs. Carbon capture and storage (“CCS”), which involves the capture and permanent burial of CO2 emissions, exemplifies this problem. This article provides an overview of CCS in Part I, focusing on geologic sequestration, and analyzes the scientific work on the potential for releases of CO2 and brine from sequestrian reservoirs. Part II evaluates the comparative advantages of government regulation and common law liability. Part III examines the relative efficiencies of different doctrines of common law liability when applied to likely releases from sequestrian sites. The authors propose a hybrid legal framework in Part IV that combines a traditional regulatory regime with a novel two-tiered system of liability that is calibrated to objective site characteristics.The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Busines

Team One Carbon Catcher Design Report

Overview The burning of fossil fuels largely contributes to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. The US Department of Transportation alone contributed almost 6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2018 (EIA). Due to this, this report proposes recycling captured CO2 into a base for cleaner burning fuel in order to reduce emissions from the transportation industry and many others, which has the potential to impact many areas. Extraction of atmospheric CO2 is possible through a membrane filtration system based on traditional nitrogen generation. The passive filtration system autonomously separates the CO2 from other air components, thereby reducing energy consumption. The system's working sensors and actuators utilize similar energy saving strategies, such as distributing cloud-computing services over multiple servers and mainframes to reduce computing power. The movement of air is directed by a scalable fan device, which is presented as a modular design to allow customization of fan parts to specific size and installation requirements. As an integrated device, Team 1’s Carbon Catcher operates with a high efficiency in order to maximize the commercial opportunity of converting captured CO2 into cleaner fuel while also reducing CO2 emissions and the greenhouse effect. Goal The goal of Team 1’s Carbon Catcher project proposal is to design a cost-effective, scalable, and modular atmospheric carbon dioxide removal system that is capable of being utilized in a range of urban environments and may fit a variety of different customer requirements or requests

EOR as sequestration: Geoscience perspective

CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) has a development and operational history several decades longer than geologic sequestration of CO2 designed to benefit the atmosphere and provides much of the experience on which confidence in the newer technology is based. With modest increases in surveillance and accounting, future CO2 EOR using anthropogenic CO2 (CO2-A) captured to decrease atmospheric emissions can be used as part of a sequestration program.Bureau of Economic Geolog