The Economics of Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage Technologies (Review)

The deployment of CO2 capture and storage (or carbon capture and storage (CCS)) technologies will enable carbon neutrality to be achieved during commercial utilization of fossil fuels. The performed studies have demonstrated that CCS technologies are quite energy-intensive and expensive. This primarily concerns the CO2 capturing equipment, which is responsible for 60–80% of the CCS total expenditures. With a decrease in the partial pressure of CO2 in a gas mixture and the capacity of the capture plant, the cost of CO2 extraction increases drastically. This applies particularly to thermal power plants (TPPs). Their provision with CO2 capture systems increases the specific capital expenditures by 1.6–2.3 times and the cost of generated electricity by 1.4–1.6 times. The power required for operation of these system amounts to approximately 9–12% of the total plant output and up to 20% with certain technologies. The unit cost of CO2 capture becomes much greater if the power plant capacity is below 200 MW. The deployment of the CCS industry will require construction of a branched pipeline system for transportation of large volumes of CO2, comparable to the gas transmission system. This will extend the potential for application of CCS technologies. The specific expenditures for pipeline transportation of CO2 are controlled by the transported amount and phase state of CO2. Increasing the transported amount of CO2 from 0.1 to 5.0 million t/year cuts down the unit cost of transportation by almost an order of magnitude. The expenditures for CO2 storage depends essentially on the characteristics of the geological reservoir. The cheapest option of CO2 storage is onshore depleted oil and gas fields. Development of the CCS technology basis requires generous state support.