Cutting Cost of CO₂ Capture in Process Industry (CO₂stCap)

Background and project purpose

Energy intensive process industry may apply a number of technologies to reduce their CO₂ emissions, including increased use of biomass, energy efficiency measures, and CCS. Even though it is often stressed that all techniques are needed, single investigations are often focusing on a single technology to reduce all plant emissions.

There is an increasing focus on CO₂ capture from the process industry, both in Norway and internationally, but in order to succeed with implementation within this segment, the costs must probably be significantly reduced. Partial CO₂ capture can be a method for significant reductions in investment and operating costs. Partial capture is defined as carbon capture with a capture rate below 90% of the site emission.

In the process industry, partial CO₂ capture can be done in various ways, e.g. by reducing operating time, capturing parts of the exhaust or using a capture technology that only extracts some of the CO₂ contained in the exhaust. Partial capture may challenge the operating philosophy of the plant but may also open up to other and / or new technology choices.

What was the project objective?

The overall aim of the project was to suggest a cost-effective carbon capture strategy for future CCS systems for different industry sites, considering
• utilization of waste heat/energy
• a more efficient use of biomass resources
• different capture technologies and optimization
• changes in market conditions

What has the project done in terms of activities?

The project has involved 4 PhD candidates working on concepts for partial CO₂ capture and technical economic analysis and optimization.

The concept of partial capture is investigated for four case studies (steel, pulp and paper, cement and silicon) by performing cost optimization calculations for a monoethanolamine (MEA) absorption-based capture process.

Techno-economic analyses has been the foundation of the work. Utilising this tool provides a common basis that enables efficient and fair comparison of alternative partial capture concepts.

Several presentations and 2 webinars have been executed and a final report with the results are available at the project webpage www.SINTEF.no/co2stcap

What has the project achieved? Did the project achieve its objective?

The project has shown that by focusing on the most cost-effective CO₂ sources, partial capture can reduce considerably both the specific and the absolute CO₂ capture costs. The reduction of the specific cost is important to motivate the operation of carbon capture, given that this cost is related to the cost of allowances for emitting CO₂ and, therefore, could create value for CCS. The reduction of the absolute cost is important in terms of reducing the risk of the investment, which is especially important for early adopters and during the maturation of the carbon markets.

More specifically, the project has performed case studies that deal with the implementation of cost-efficient carbon capture in four Nordic industries: Cement, Steel, Pulp and paper and Silicon production. The results demonstrate the potential for cost-efficient partial capture of CO₂ at all these industrial sites. In summary, the plants investigated could capture 100–500 kt/a each by utilizing the excess heat and low-pressure steam available at the sites at a cost of 40–70 €/tonne CO₂, with the steel and cement plants having the lowest costs. This can be compared to the 80–110 €/tonne CO₂ required for full capture.

Future plans

The project results show that there are possibilities to reduce the capture cost for industries, and that partial capture may be a method to escalating the construction of CCS chains. Other industries should be investigated and further focus on cost reduction methods to escalating the future with industry CCS.