Potential economies of scale in CO2 transport through use of a trunk pipeline

Abstract A number of existing models for the transport of CO 2 in carbon capture and storage assume the CO 2 will be carried through isolated pipelines that connect each source to the nearest storage site. However storage costs will vary geographically, and it may be more economical to transport the CO 2 farther away to a lower cost storage site if the pipelines can be linked to the site via a primary trunkline. We evaluate this alternative by developing an engineering-economic model that computes the levelized cost of transporting captured CO 2 through pipes of different diameters and over varying distances. The model also computes the additional energy use and resulting CO 2 emissions involved in the transport and is used to arrive at a generalized correlation for estimating the cost of CO 2 transport ($/tonne/km) for different mass flow rates. Model results indicate that the cost for transporting CO 2 could be significantly reduced using a large-diameter trunkline networked to pipelines from individual CO 2 sources. This suggests that the design of CO 2 transport systems could be an important influence on the selection of storage sites, particularly where there is a tradeoff between nearby but high-cost sites and distant, low-cost sites.

[1]  John Gale,et al.  Transmission of CO2-Safety and Economic Considerations , 2004 .

[2]  Michael Klett,et al.  The Economics of CO2 Storage , 2003 .

[3]  Harry Audus,et al.  Greenhouse gas mitigation technology: An overview of the CO2 capture and sequestration studies and further activities of the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme , 1997 .

[4]  S. Schneider,et al.  Climate Change 2007 Synthesis report , 2008 .

[5]  Lora L Pinkerton,et al.  Cost and Performance Baseline for Fossil Energy Plants Volume 1a: Bituminous Coal (PC) and Natural Gas to Electricity Revision 3 , 2011 .

[6]  Roland W. Jeppson,et al.  Hydraulics of Pipeline Systems , 1999 .

[7]  Leonard Steinborn.  The United States Code of Federal Regulations 21 CFR, Part 11, Electronic Records/Electronic Signatures , 2004 .

[8]  Rickard Svensson,et al.  Transportation systems for CO2––application to carbon capture and storage , 2004 .

[9]  Richard W. Johnson.  The handbook of fluid dynamics , 1998 .

[10]  Edward S. Rubin,et al.  An engineering-economic model of pipeline transport of CO2 with application to carbon capture and storage , 2008 .

[11]  Kris Piessens,et al.  Pipeline design for a least-cost router application for CO2 transport in the CO2 sequestration cycle , 2008 .

[12]  Otto Skovholt.  Co2 transportation system , 1993 .

[13]  Nathan Parker,et al.  Using Natural Gas Transmission Pipeline Costs to Estimate Hydrogen Pipeline Costs , 2004 .

[14]  Jordan K. Eccles,et al.  Physical and economic potential of geological CO2 storage in saline aquifers. , 2009, Environmental science & technology.