Economics of CO2 Utilization: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

The economics of CO 2 utilization are discussed from a critical perspective, with a concise analysis of the state-of-the-art of economics in power-to-X (methanol, methane). The main elements of the analysis of the economics are commented to provide guidelines on how to interpret the techno-economic results in the area of CO 2 utilization. It remarks the need of a careful analysis of the specific context, and of the limits of the evaluation, in order to go beyond the just use of the results without a proper analysis of how the data support the conclusions, their limits and applicability. Case examples discussed in a more detail regard the CO 2 to methanol or methane conversion, from the perspective of highlighting possible issues or limits rather than to indicate which results are more valuable, which is out of the scope of this contribution.

Remote Renewable Hubs for Carbon-Neutral Synthetic Fuel Production

“…Hence, the production of carbon-neutral synthetic fuels and feedstocks from renewable electricity has been the focus of a growing body of literature. For example, the synthesis of carbon-neutral hydrogen (Borgschulte, 2016), methane (Biswas et al, 2020), methanol (Centi et al, 2020), and ammonia (Ghavam et al, 2021) have all been considered. A number of demonstration projects have been carried out as well (Wulf et al, 2020).…”

An overview of CO2 capture and utilization in energy models

“…Apart from the technical modeling recommendations, we argue that CCU could be modeled in other contexts, such as the sustainability of the economy or a carbon circular economy. Firstly, TEAs and LCAs currently make up much of the research about CCU performance (Cruz et al, 2021), while the socio-economics of CCU raises less interest (Centi et al, 2020). This could be one reason why TD models are underrepresented in CCU modeling: they need this kind of information in order to be run.…”

“…Recent literature reviews show advances in carbon dioxide utilization (Ghiat and Al-Ansari, 2021) but also reveal three major barriers to its deployment: technology readiness (Ampelli et al, 2015;Mustafa et al, 2020), high energy consumption (Alper and Yuksel Orhan, 2017;Aresta et al, 2013;Huang and Tan, 2014) and high costs (Centi et al, 2020;Hepburn et al, 2019). Undoubtedly, these reviews gather information that can be extracted and implemented in energy models to represent a CCU chain and assess whether it can play a significant role in the future energy transition.…”

Spiers Memorial Lecture: CO2 utilization: why, why now, and how?

“…Assessments, both TEA and LCA, rarely provide a unique and straightforward answer; rather, several factors need to be considered to draw a conclusion and make decisions about continuation of research, scale-up, deployment, policy support, etc. 123,124 ISO standards 14040 and 14044 are available for LCA in general. Applying these standards for CDU, though, le key assumptions and procedures to the user's discretion.…”