A Review of Recent Advances in Cost-Effective Infrastructure System Design of the CO2 Distribution to CCS Injection Wells

Abstract

Abstract CO2 transport from capture sources to storage sites is one of the leading parts of the carbon capture, and storage (CCS) infrastructure that needs to be optimized in order to reduce the capital, operating and maintenance (O&M) costs. This paper conducts a systematic overview of CO2 transport and identifies the knowledge gaps with a view for application to optimal CCS Hub design. The findings show that much research has been focused on the engineering and economic consequences in pure CO2 streams while in most real field studies the captured CO2 is accompanied with trace impurities that can affect the "intelligent" cost model's confidence to estimate CO2 pipeline costs. The impacts of different topographical conditions in current models on the economic pressure drop and inlet pressure is another challenge that has received little attention in the literature. Most cost-effective pipeline systems described in the literature, are based on the simple point-to-point design while the capture of CO2 from multiple sources and transport to multiple distributed CCS injection wells is an issue for the industrial-scale rollout of CCS. The lack of sufficient studies on the flow variations within CO2 networks is the last discussion in this research review. Further, there have been several cost models reported in the literature, and most of them are based on the costs of the natural gas pipeline infrastructure. However, the higher operating pressure of CO2 and the various impurities in CO2 streams from capture plant may require construction material specifications that will affect cost models. A systematic understanding of how CO2 pipelines contribute to CCS chain economics is still lacking. While many optimization challenges have been solved for natural gas pipeline networks, there are different thermodynamic behaviors for CO2 that require further optimization. The potential minor impurities that could occur in CO2 pipelines such as water (H2O), nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and methane (CH4) can add complexity compared to the transport of natural gas.