Analysing CO2 capture, transport, and storage chain options for cement industry in the LEILAC2 project

In order to reach greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, atmospheric CO2 emissions from all industrial sectors need to be avoided. Globally, the cement production industry emits 2.4 Gt CO2 per year, or 7% of all CO2 emissions (IEA). While about a third of this could be reduced by using renewable energy sources, the remainder are process emissions from the calcination process. Lime or CaO is produced by heating limestone (CaCO3), emitting CO2. The Australian company Calix has developed a direct separation technology for capturing these process emissions; a pilot-scale installation is operational at the Lixhe cement plant in Belgium (Figure 1). The EU H2020-funded LEILAC2 project (Low Emission Intensity Lime and Cement 2: Demonstration Scale) upscaling and integrating a novel type of carbon capture technology. This technology aims to capture, at low cost, unavoidable process emissions from cement and lime plant. This large-scale capture plant will be installed at the Heidelberg Cement’s plant in Hannover, Germany, capturing 20% of a typical cement plant’s CO2 emission. Apart from the physical installation and operation of the capture unit, a business case will be developed for the downstream components of transport, use and geological storage for the captured CO2. In order to develop a business case, a very large number of options, combinations and scenarios for each these components need to be evaluated, taking into account the intricacies of for example dealing with geological data in economic calculations. The PSS suite of geo-techno-economic simulators has been developed by the Geological Survey of Belgium, specifically for creating forecasts on the deployment of CO2 capture and geological storage (CCS) technologies (Welkenhuysen et al., 2013). In PSS, investment decisions for the full CCS chain are simulated as a forecast in a non-deterministic way, considering uncertainty and flexibility. Especially for matching storage, these elements are essential. While capture in this demonstration project is a given, several scenarios will be analyzed: the current demo-scale, full-scale capture, and CO2-network integration. Due to its location, several CO2 transport options can be considered at the Hannover plant: from low-volume truck, railway or barge transport, up to ships and pipelines. Special attention is given to possible connections with ongoing and planned initiatives for infrastructure and hub development such as the Porthos project in the port of Rotterdam or the Northern Lights project offshore Norway. In the wider area around the capture location, North-Western Europe including the North Sea offshore area, there are many potential storage options available. Offshore storage options will be the primary targets for assessment, with many (nearly) depleted hydrocarbon fields and saline aquifers that are present in the southern North Sea. Storage aspects are treated as stochastic parameters, with for example storage capacity and injectivity of the reservoirs represented by probability density functions. In order to compare storage options, the degree of knowledge, uncertainty and economic and practical development feasibility of such a storage location needs to be assessed. An analysis of such storage classification systems is created by Tovar et al. (this conference). With the above-mentioned PSS method and CCS project development options, source-sink matching is performed to create forecasts on project and network development. Results will provide insight in the probability of preferred storage option development for steering exploration and development efforts, preferred transport modes and routes, the optimal timing of investments, and the influence of market parameters, such as the ETS price of CO2 emissions. Acknowledgments This research is carried out under the LEILAC2 project, which receives funding by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement number 884170. The LEILAC2 consortium consists of: Calix Europe SARL, HeidelbergCement AG, Ingenieurbüro Kühlerbau Neustad GmbH (IKN), Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR), Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI), Geological Survey of Belgium (RBINS-GSB), ENGIE Laborelec, Port of Rotterdam, Calix Limited, CIMPOR-Indústria de Cimentos SA and Lhoist Recherche et Development SA. References IEA, 2020. Energy Technology Perspectives 2020. https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-technology-perspectives-2020 Tovar, A., Piessens, K. & Welkenhuysen, K., this conference. Ranking CO2 storage capacities and identifying their technical, economic and regulatory constraints: A review of methods and screening criteria. Welkenhuysen K., Ramírez A., Swennen R. & Piessens K., 2013. Strategy for ranking potential CO2 storage reservoirs: A case study for Belgium. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 17, 431-449. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2013.05.025

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