Economic optimisation of European supply chains for CO2 capture, transport and sequestration

Diminishing the anthropogenic generation of greenhouse gases is one of the key challenges of the twenty-first century. Considering the current state of affairs, it is barely impossible to reduce emissions without relying on CO2 capture and sequestration technologies. In a situation where a large-scale infrastructure is yet to be developed, mathematical programming techniques can provide valuable tools to decision makers for optimising their choices. Here, a mixed integer linear programming framework for the strategic design and planning of a large European supply chain for carbon geological storage is presented. The European territory is discretised so as to allow for a spatially explicit definition of large emission clusters. As regards CO2 capture, post-combustion, oxy-fuel combustion and pre-combustion are considered as possible technological options, whereas both pipelines (inshore and offshore) and ships are taken into account as possible transport means. The overall network is economically optimised over a 20 years’ time horizon to provide the geographic location and scale of capture and sequestration sites as well as the most convenient transport means and routes. Different scenarios (capturing up to 70% of European CO2 emissions from large stationary sources) are analysed and commented on. Results demonstrate the good European potential for carbon sequestration and give some indications on the total cost for CO2 capture, transport and sequestration. Capture costs are found to be the major contribution to total cost, while transport and sequestration costs are never higher than 10% of the investment required to set in motion and operate the whole network. The overall costs for a European carbon capture, transport and storage supply chain were estimated in the range of 27–38 €/ton of CO2.