Recovery Act: 'Carbonsheds' as a Framework for Optimizing United States Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Pipeline Transport on a Regional to National Scale

Abstract

Carbonsheds are regions in which the estimated cost of transporting CO 2 from any (plant) location in the region to the storage site it encompasses is cheaper than piping the CO 2 to a storage site outside the region. We use carbonsheds to analyze the cost of transport and storage of CO 2 in deploying CCS on land and offshore of the continental U.S. We find that onshore the average cost of transport and storage within carbonsheds is roughly $10/t when sources cooperate to reduce transport costs, with the costs increasing as storage options are depleted over time. Offshore transport and storage costs by comparison are found to be roughly twice as expensive but t may still be attractive because of easier access to property rights for sub--seafloor storage as well as a simpler regulatory system, and possibly lower MMV requirements, at least in the deep--ocean where pressures and temperatures would keep the CO 2 negatively buoyant. Agent--based modeling of CCS deployment within carbonsheds under various policy scenarios suggests that the most cost--effective strategy at this point in time is to focus detailed geology characterization of storage potential on only the largest onshore reservoirs where the potential for mitigating emissions is greatest and the cost of storage appears that it will be among the cheapest.iii