Techno-Economic Assessment Guidelines for CO2 Utilization

Abstract

Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) is an emerging technology field that can replace fossil carbon value chains, and that has a significant potential to achieve emissions mitigation or even "negative emissions"-however in many cases with challenging technology feasibility and economic viability. Further challenges arise in the decision making for CCU technology research, development, and deployment, in particular when allocating funding or time resources. No generally accepted techno-economic assessment (TEA) standard has evolved, and assessment studies often result in "apples vs. oranges" comparisons, a lack of transparency and a lack of comparability to other studies. A detailed guideline for systematic techno-economic (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) for CCU technologies was developed; this paper shows a summarized version of the TEA guideline, which includes distinct and prioritized (shall and should) rules and which allows conducting TEA in parallel to LCA. The TEA guideline was developed in a co-operative and creative approach with roughly 50 international experts and is based on a systematic literature review as well as on existing best practices from TEA and LCA from the areas of industry, academia, and policy. To the best of our knowledge, this guideline is the first TEA framework with a focus on CCU technologies and the first that is designed to be conducted in parallel to LCA due to aligned vocabulary and assessment steps, systematically including technology maturity. Therefore, this work extends current literature, improving the design, implementation, and reporting approaches of TEA studies for CCU technologies. Overall, the application of this TEA guideline aims at improved comparability of TEA studies, leading to improved decision making and more efficient allocation of funds and time resources for the research, development, and deployment of CCU technologies.

The carbon footprint of the carbon feedstock CO2

“…[21][22][23] The generic ISO standards have recently been adapted for CO 2 utilization in LCA guidelines developed by the Global CO 2 Initiative 24 and the U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory. 25 These LCA guidelines have been linked to techno-economic assessment (TEA) 26 enabling harmonized assessment of LCA and TEA for CO 2 utilization. 27 Despite these LCA standards and guidelines, however, in current practice, several accounting approaches are applied leading to a wide range for greenhouse gas emissions (in the following called 'carbon footprint').…”

Economics of CO2 Utilization: A Critical Analysis

“…This is even more relevant when a system change is present, with thus also major changes in the full value chain, supply-demand, and technology requirements. Zimmermann et al (2020) recently discussed that there are no generally accepted techno-economic assessment (TEA) methods and often "apples vs. oranges" are compared with thus low transparency and readability, as remarked also in the introduction. They thus developed guideline for TEA and LCA technologies for the case of CO 2 utilization technologies.…”

“…An initial recommendation they made is that TEA should start from the identification of the context, the intended use and the limitations, concepts which are well coincident with what discussed above. Zimmermann et al (2020) indicated that TEA should follow the concepts of LCA in terms of structuring the approach and different phases of the analysis: goal and scope, inventory, calculation of indicators, interpretation, and reporting. TEA should state clearly and unambiguously 1) the study context (location, time horizon, scale and partners, etc.…”

“…Many reviews and papers have discussed the costs and techno-economic feasibility of CO 2 utilization routes, a selection (not exhaustive) of which is the following: Centi and Perathoner (2010), Quadrelli et al (2011), Aresta et al (2013), Centi et al (2013), Barbato et al (2014), Centi and Perathoner (2014), Perathoner and Centi (2014), Laumb et al (2013), Ampelli et al (2015), Dimitriou et al (2015), Pérez-Fortes et al (2016), Naims (2016), Navarrete et al (2017), Ordomsky et al (2017), Senftle and Carter, (2017), Zheng et al (2017), Iaquaniello et al (2018), Koytsoumpa et al (2018), González-Garay et al (2019a), Hepburn et al (2019), Jens et al (2019), , Grim et al (2020), Meunier et al (2020), Mustafa et al (2020), , and Zimmermann et al (2020). Although the conclusions are often contradictory, it is commonly suggested that there still exist large barriers for the implementation and deployment of CCU.…”

Utilization of Gaseous Carbon Dioxide and Industrial Ca-Rich Waste for Calcium Carbonate Precipitation: A Review

“…The available data show that the mineral carbonation CCU technology has an economic advantage in energy penalty, power plant construction, and operating cost over other proposed CCS and CCU technologies [117]. Recommendations for a techno-economic analysis of CCS and CCU processes have recently been published [118], and the application of this TEA guideline may improve the comparability of TEA studies.…”