Net energy analysis and net carbon benefits of CO2 capture and transport infrastructure for energy applications and industrial clusters

Carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) will play one of the major roles in eradicating the contributions of industrialized countries to climate change and reaching net zero goals. CCUS clusters, where several industrial facilities create a network of emitters and share CO2 transport and storage infrastructure, can provide strategic benefits for developing carbon management technologies. This work contributes to the assessment of CO2 capture and transport infrastructure in terms of energy penalties and carbon footprints and enables a targeted improvement of the CCUS cluster sequencing process. In particular, the objective of this simulation-based study was to facilitate the identification of the technical and environmental characteristics of capture plants and pipeline networks for power, industrial and hydrogen projects, as part of cluster sequencing competition. To this end, a net energy analysis was used to assess the energy cost/benefit ratio of power decarbonisation projects, while carbon return on investment analysis provided results for emissions of carbon capture infrastructure in industrial and hydrogen decarbonisation projects, enabling the identification of the priority network elements for achieving the expected decarbonisation outcome. The hydraulic modeling approach and the results of the steady-state simulation of the pipeline network were used for the extension of the boundaries of the net energy analysis and taking into account the effect of transport infrastructure. Two case studies covering the Polish CCUS landscape are presented, the first related to the power sector and the second to industrial and hydrogen decarbonisation projects. The studies include preliminary sizing of capture plants and pipeline transport infrastructure, based on the assumption of the offshore storage site (or receiving terminal) in the Baltic Sea. The network has a tree structure and consists of 81 branches, 50 sending nodes, 3 compressor stations and one receiving node in the storage site location. The emission sources are coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, refineries, cement and fertilizer plants. The results show that the energy return on energy invested ratio of potential carbon capture projects in Polish energy market ranges from 8.3:1 to 14.7:1, while the carbon return on carbon invested ratio of industrial carbon capture projects ranges from 4.1:1 to 12.9:1. Therefore, the modeling framework incorporating net energy and net carbon analysis provides criteria for the evaluation of CO2 sources that facilitate cluster sequencing programs and support future CCUS deployment.