A cArbon cApture And storAge network for yorkshire And humber

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10.0 CONCLUSION
The first step in meeting the aims of the
Carbon Capture and Storage Partnership
for Yorkshire and Humber was to focus
work on the economic costs of the transport
component, excluding capture and storage
costs, of a carbon capture and storage
(CCS) area network solution serving multiple
sources and offshore geological storage.
The major commercial concern regarding
CCS is uncertainty of the value of CO2. For
a particular plant the major cost decision
faced by an individual plant operator is that
required to capture their CO2, as the capture
largest cost component of CCS. This study
does not address the value or revenue or
accounting aspects of CCS.
This study provides a regional level transport
feasibility study. It shows that a network
decision at an economic level is relatively
cost attractive, which is important in terms
of choices regarding what the UK should
do to reduce CO2 emissions.
The inputs for individual investments
cascade down from a global level, well
beyond local concerns, but what can be
achieved at regional level is the provision of
a route and storage option for a local emitter
considering capture of their CO2.
Carbon Capture and Storage Network
The amount of storage near to Yorkshire
and Humber is large, but not much larger
than the potential maximum supply from the
region to 2050, or if emitters from outside
the region decide to store CO2 in the same
area of the southern North Sea. Even
though the potential for use of depleted
gas fields is very good, access, injectivity
and volumes require to be confirmed.
Furthermore, there is a definite need to
establish the availability or otherwise of
saline aquifer storage. The preferred offshore
routing reduces access costs to the larger
aquifers, 2 or routes to enough depleted
gas fields to accommodate output from
emitters starting to capture before 2030 and
continuing to store until 2050. To have the
most security of choice for local storage,
including post 2050 storage, without use of
deep saline aquifers, all the large depleted
gas fields are needed to meet the CO2
capture scenarios.
To develop a CCS network to service more
than one plant, the additional issues of
transport and storage of CO2 need to be
in place to support an investment decision
on CO2 capture at multiple sites.
The next steps to do this are described
in the recommendations section.
Considering what commitment is required to
create a network some of the choices within
the scenarios suggests that a general aim to
deploy CCS at large scale is important as it
enables economies of scale. However, the
detailed timing and level of emissions from
a single source are only important over a
shorter term, i.e. within about a 5 to 7 year
window. In other words in the short term the
sizing and routing decisions are affected by
significant (>200,000t/year) volumes. Thus
long-term commitments enables pipelines,
generic way leave planning and agreements
on storage sites, short term commitments
enables incremental pipe sizing and offshore
well developments.
The initiation of a network remains a
particularly difficult problem as the first
user takes a much higher risk and greater
costs than someone joining after it is
well established.
A key recommendation is to address how
to provide the first parts of the network.
The main thrust is to aim to re-use existing
infrastructure when the first commitment
is relatively small. This must reduce costs
and will also have value if it can defer costs.
The uncertainties include timing, technical
suitability, decommissioning and ownership
transfers or agreement on asset costs, store
licensing and liabilities