PNNL

Abstract

This paper summarizes the results of a first-of-its-kind holistic, integrated economic analysis of the potential role of carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) technologies across the regional segments of the United States of America (USA) electric power sector, over the time frame 2005-2045, in response to two hypothetical emissions control policies analyzed against two potential energy supply futures that include updated and substantially higher projected prices for natural gas. A key feature of this paper’s analysis is an attempt to explicitly model the inherent heterogeneities that exist in both the nation’s current and future electricity generation infrastructure and candidate deep geologic CO2 storage formations. Overall, between 180 and 580 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired integrated gasification combined cycle with CCS (IGCC+CCS) capacity is built by 2045 in these four scenarios, requiring between 12 and 41gigatons of CO2 (GtCO2) of storage in regional deep geologic reservoirs across the USA. Nearly all of this CO2 is from new IGCC+CCS systems, which start to deploy after 2025. Relatively little IGCC+CCS capacity is built before that time, primarily under unique niche opportunities. For the most part, CO2 emissions prices will likely need to be sustained at well over $10-20/ton CO2 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 USA 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. One region sees 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 and beyond.