Carbon Capture and Sequestration in the United States: Locating the Lowest Cost Opportunities
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Recent proceedings in Paris, France and the proposal of the Clean Power Plant in the United States have brought heightened attention to climate change. It is widely acknowledged that greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide (CO2) must be drastically reduced to prevent catastrophic global warming. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is one path towards controlling emissions, and serves as a key component to climate change mitigation. CCS will serve as a bridge between the fossil fuel energy of today and the renewable energy of the future. This thesis aims to use geographic information systems (GIS) to bring together key CCS data within the U.S. to determine the "low-hanging fruit" of CCS. Top CO2-emitting industries, from coal power plants to ethanol plants, were the focus of this work. Although fossil-fueled power plants emit the vast majority of stationary CO2, many other industries emit purer streams of CO2, which reduce the capture cost and work. Moreover, many industries outside of electricity generation do not have ready alternatives for becoming low-carbon; CCS may be their only option. An extensive literature search was performed to find the process conditions for capture-relevant CO2 streams within each industry. The thermodynamic minimum work for separation was then calculated, followed by a Sherwood analysis of capture cost. The Sherwood plot correlates the relationship between concentrations of a target substance with the cost to separate it from the remaining components. As the target concentration increases, the cost to separate decreases on a molar basis. The CO2 quantity and quality data was then combined with geographic location of the CO2 point sources to map out the greatest potential for implementing CCS pilot plants. The spatial analysis of CO2 point sources revealed that as the purity of CO2 emissions increases, the quantity at a single source tends to decrease. Furthermore, the lowest cost opportunities for deploying first-of-a-kind CCS technology were found to be in the Midwest and along the Gulf Coast. Many high purity industries, such as ethanol production, ammonia production and natural gas processing, are located in these regions. The southern Midwest and Gulf Coast are also co-located with potential geologic sequestration sites and enhanced oil recovery sites. Therefore, the central and southern Midwest, and Gulf Coast should be the focus for implementing CCS pilot plants. These sites will provide the demonstration and knowledge necessary for reducing carbon capture technology costs across all industries, and improving the economic viability for CCS and climate change mitigation. The total cost estimate for capturing relevant CO2 from all industries was between $93.5 and $122.5 billion
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | March 2016 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Bains, Praveen |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Wilcox, Jennifer |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Energy Resources Engineering |
Subjects
| Subject | School of Earth Energy & Environmental Sciences |
|---|---|
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Bains, Praveen. (2016). Carbon Capture and Sequestration in the United States: Locating the Lowest Cost Opportunities. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/db179cg3223
Collection
Master's Theses, Doerr School of Sustainability
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