Techno-economic performance and challenges of applying CO2 capture in the industry: A case study of five industrial plants

Abstract

To date, literature often presents generic results on the techno-economic performance of CO 2 capture in industry. Insufficient knowledge is available on the impact of site-specific factors on the feasibility of CO 2 capture at industrial plant level. This article presents a techno-economic analysis and an inventory of potential implementation and operational challenges related to the three main CO 2 capture technologies applied at industrial plant level for the short term (2020-2025) and long term (2040-2050). Five industrial plants from various industrial sectors (a medium and large sized petroleum refinery, a small and medium sized chemical plant, and a large hydrogen plant) in the Netherlands were used for this study. The results show the lowest CO 2 avoidance costs for the refineries (24-57 D /t) and chemical plants (37-124 D /t) when operated in oxyfuel combustion mode, both for the short and long term, although post-combustion is economically preferable for the smallest chemical plant (117 D /t) in the short term. For the hydrogen plant, avoidance costs (67 D /t) are lowest when capturing CO 2 solely from the highpressure process gas. For the short term cases, spatial constraints on existing plant sites could increase the indicated CO 2 avoidance costs, especially for post-combustion capture; for the long term cases, newbuilt capture ready process units, plant integration and optimized utilities are expected to lower the avoidance costs for all three capture technologies.

Techno‐economic performance of sustainable international bio‐SNG production and supply chains on short and longer term

“…As shown in Fig. , current natural gas prices in the Netherlands (12.0 $ GJ −1 ) and forecasted gas prices for the coming decade (18.2 $ GJ −1 ) are much lower than the bioSNG production costs. BioSNG are still much higher than natural gas even if a CO 2 tax is included (natural gas plus CO 2 tax is about 12.6 $ GJ −1 (current) to 21.4 $ GJ −1 (future)).…”

An analysis of the investment risk related to the integration of a supercritical coal-fired combined heat and power plant with an absorption installation for CO 2 separation

“…The results of economic evaluations of integrations of supercritical coal-fired combined heat and power plants with carbon capture installations are shown in [26,27]. Economic efficiency analyses for many variants of CHP plants, including the two being the subject of this paper, were already shown in [16,17].…”

Life‐cycle performance of natural gas power plants with pre‐combustion CO2 capture

“…However, because the exiting gas includes a considerable amount of nitrogen that complicates the separation of the included CO 2 , chemical absorption is realized (chemical absorption unit, CAU) . In the CAU, 85% of the CO 2 included in the stream is separated and the thermal energy required for the regeneration of the chemical solvent (monoethanolamine, MEA) is provided from a low‐pressure steam extraction. After the CAU, the captured CO 2 is led to the compression unit, while the hydrogen‐rich gas (fuel) is sent to the combustion chamber of the gas turbine system of the plant.…”

“…The most common application of pre‐combustion method for CO 2 capture is the gasification of coal and the combustion of the generated syngas in a combined‐cycle power plant. Although integrated gasification combined cycles (IGCCs) operate with a relatively high efficiency, they are complex and associated with numerous operational challenges and high investment costs . Overall, the implementation of pre‐combustion CO 2 capture technologies both in coal and natural gas power plants requires either the construction of new facilities or significant modifications of already existing, conventional power plants.…”