Economic Feasibility Studies for Carbon Capture and Utilisation Technologies: A Tutorial Review

Abstract

Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) involves the capture and use of CO2 as a resource to create valuable products. The economic viability of CCU technologies is crucial for its implementation in real life. The competitiveness of various CCU technologies has been investigated frequently resulting in a variety of economic feasibility studies and economic indicators. This study performs a tutorial review, in which practical guidance is given on the implementation of TEAs for chemical CCU technologies. The tutorial review will critically examine the economic feasibility studies that have been performed in this field and will advise how these studies can be improved in the future. A thorough review of the literature set is performed, in which we evaluate the quality of the economic feasibility studies in the literature set by comparing these studies to the guidelines from Zimmermann et al. (2020). The five phases of an exhaustive TEA are (I) goal and scope, (II) data inventory, (III) calculation of indicators, (IV) interpretation, and (V) writing the report. We evaluate the implementation of these five phases in the economic feasibility studies in the literature set. The tutorial review shows that economic feasibility studies for chemical CCU technologies can and should be improved in various manners. Phase I and II are often skipped or incomplete. Phase III, the calculation of assessment indicators, shows diversity in the indicator base which hampers comparability across CCU technologies of the technical and economic criteria that are key for the feasibility. Phase IV, the interpretation of results, is often missing in the literature set or lacks thorough uncertainty and sensitivity analyses. These findings suggest that future economic feasibility studies should be made in a more standardized way to improve both the quality and comparability of economic feasibility studies. This tutorial review has raised important questions about the management of uncertainty and flexibility in economic feasibility studies. The integration of Real Options Analysis (ROA) within the TEA is proposed to analyse the investment decision in CCU technologies in a dynamic setting.