Techno-economic evaluation of blue hydrogen production with carbon capture and storage for onshore Eastern Australia

Abstract

This techno-economic assessment models the feasibility of a greenfield blue hydrogen development with production capacity of 400 tons of hydrogen per day (TH2/day). At an assumed 85% CO2 recovery rate, the 400 TH2/day production scale equates to a need for approximately 1.241 million tons of CO2 per year (MtCO2/year) of subsurface CO2 storage capacity over an assumed project life of 25 years (approximately 31 Mt of total CO2 sequestered). The blue hydrogen production technology applied to the assessment is a Steam Methane Reformer (SMR) with two points of CO2 recovery (pre-combustion process stream amine scrubbing and post-combustion flue gas capture). The remaining key scope components are the CO2 compression and dehydration system, 65 km of CO2 distribution pipeline and a CO2 injection and storage hub comprised of three injection wells, three deep observation wells and three groundwater monitoring wells. The study includes the screening process applied to identify five high-grade depleted gas reservoirs in the Cooper Basin that are the CO2 storage candidates, and which ultimately define the project location. The economic evaluation of the project includes the definition of cost and operations estimates to determine a mean project case and then applies a Palisade @Risk probabilistic distribution model to key project inputs as to risk the project under various scenarios. The analysis concludes that the economic viability of large-scale, greenfield blue hydrogen projects in Australia is highly dependent on hydrogen sale price, Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) value, wholesale natural gas prices and capital cost efficiency.