PNNL

Abstract

This paper summarizes the results of a first of its kind holistic, integrated economic analysis of the potential of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) technologies across the United States (US) electric power sector, over the time frame 2006-2045, in response to two hypothetical emissions control policies and across two potential energy supply futures that include updated and substantially higher projected prices for natural gas. A key feature of this paper’s analysis was an explicit attempt to model the inherent heterogeneity of the nation’s current and future electricity production infrastructure and the inherent heterogeneity of the nation’s candidate deep geologic CO2 storage formations. Overall, between 180 and 580 GW of IGCC with CCS capacity is built by 2045 in these four scenarios, requiring between 12 and 41 GtCO2 of storage in regional deep geologic reservoirs across the US by the Year 2045. Nearly all of this CO2 is from new coal-fired integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) with CCS capacity, which starts to deploy after 2025. Relatively little IGCC with CCS capacity is built before that time, and only under unique niche opportunities. For the most part, CO2 emissions prices will likely need to be well over $10-20/ton CO2 and must be in place for a significant period of time before CCS begins to deploy on a large scale within the electric power sector. Within these broad national trends, a highly nuanced picture of CCS deployment across the US emerges. Across the four scenarios studied here, some North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) regions do not employ any CCS while others build more than 100 GW of CCS-enabled generation capacity. Some regions see as much as 50% of their geologic CO2 storage reservoirs’ total theoretical capacity consumed by 2045, while the majority of the regions still have more than 90% of their potential storage capacity available to meet storage needs in the second half of the century.