Towards improved guidelines for cost evaluation of carbon capture and storage

Abstract

Understanding the costs of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is essential to understand the role for and potential of CCS technology in addressing climate change, for guidance in research activities aiming to reduce the cost and improve the performance of promising new CCS technologies in different applications. In practice, however, there are many challenges in establishing reliable cost estimates for CCS technologies. To help identify and overcome these challenges, a group of experts from industry, government, academia and other organisations came together in 2011 to form the CCS Cost Network (which came under the aegis of IEAGHG in 2017 [1]). Following discussions at the first CCS Cost Network workshop [1], several members of the workshop steering committee formed a task force to focus on the basic structure of CCS cost estimates. That effort produced a White Paper entitled, "Toward a Common Method of Cost Estimation for CCS at Fossil Fuel Power Plants" [2]. This white paper aimed at overcoming identified pitfalls in CCS cost evaluations for fossil fuel power plants arising from the different methodologies used by various organisations. Towards this aim, the white paper established a common costing methodology and nomenclature, as well as guidelines for CCS cost reporting to improve the clarity and consistency of cost estimates for greenhouse gas mitigation measures. While that work laid the foundation for establishing a common costing methodology for CCS, several important cost issues still remained to be addressed. Building on that earlier work and the interest from additional organisations, the current white paper is an effort to draw up a complementary set of CCS costing guidelines in three complementary areas where further guidelines and better practices are needed, and where efforts are underway to address those topics. This effort is a collaboration among researchers at several industrial research institutes (Electric

Adapting Technology Learning Curves for Prospective Techno-Economic and Life Cycle Assessments of Emerging Carbon Capture and Utilization Pathways

“…They also argue that an S-shaped learning curve should be used, although this has policy implications as the forecasted price reductions vary widely from standard learning curves. Overall, the report summarizes the methodology provided in the IEAGHG report (Antes et al, 2005) (Rubin, 2019;Roussanaly et al, 2021). That is, the FOAK plant is estimated using a comprehensive bottom-up approach that models the costs of each component of the plant while the NOAK plant cost is generated using learning curves applied to the calculated FOAK cost (Rubin, 2019;Roussanaly et al, 2021).…”

“…Overall, the report summarizes the methodology provided in the IEAGHG report (Antes et al, 2005) (Rubin, 2019;Roussanaly et al, 2021). That is, the FOAK plant is estimated using a comprehensive bottom-up approach that models the costs of each component of the plant while the NOAK plant cost is generated using learning curves applied to the calculated FOAK cost (Rubin, 2019;Roussanaly et al, 2021). FOAK plants are designed with over-sized and redundant equipment to reduce risk of failure during operation.…”

“…To support this effort, the Global CO 2 Initiative (GCI) has published guidelines for conducting such assessments (Zimmermann et al, 2020) along with guidance on how to commission, understand and derive decisions for CCU processes for practitioners, decision-makers, and research commissioners (Cremonese et al, 2020). There are a couple of other guidance documents covering LCA and cost estimation for CCUS technologies as well (Skone et al, 2019;Roussanaly et al, 2021). This study seeks to expand on this previous work by offering a framework for improving the robustness of impact forecasting for emerging CCU technologies.…”

“…Novel technologies and pilot plants do not have a high degree of technological learning or experience. Some methods for incorporating learning effects into economic and environmental assessment have previously been proposed (Thomassen et al, 2020;Roussanaly et al, 2021), and many involve assessing data for similar technologies that have already been optimized. Given data gaps and methodological limitations, current TEA and LCA assessments offer limited value for informing projections about the viability of CCU in climate mitigation pathways.…”

AssessCCUS: An Integrated Approach for Aggregating Resources to Enable Techno-Economic and Life Cycle Assessment of Carbon Management Technologies

“…While LCA and TEA can be performed for any kind of industrial process and there has been a significant amount of work done on developing general guidance for both methodologies (ISO, 2006;AACE International, 2021), customized guidelines are useful for CCUS technologies to help address common pitfalls and enable "apples-to-apples" comparisons (Zimmermann et al, 2021). Various organizations have created LCA and TEA guidance with a specific focus on CCUS technologies (Skone et al, 2019;Zimmermann et al, 2020;Roussanaly et al, 2021), and harmonization among these guidelines is important to enable comparable and consistent assessments of established and emerging technologies (Sick et al, 2020). The authors recommend reviewing these references for a comprehensive overview of recommendations for and features of life cycle and techno-economic assessment of CCUS technologies.…”