The cost of CO2 transport and storage in global integrated assessment modeling

Summary/Abstract

This paper assesses the range of CO₂ transport and storage costs and evaluates their impact on economy-wide modeling results of decarbonization pathways.

The paper surveys the literature to identify key sources of variability in transport and storage costs and develops a method to quantify and incorporate these elements into a cost range. It finds that onshore pipeline transport and storage costs vary from $4 to 45/tCO₂ depending on key sources of variability including transport distance, scale (i.e. quantity of CO₂ transported and stored), monitoring assumptions, reservoir geology, and transport cost variability such as pipeline capital costs. The paper concludes that the widely used assumption of $10/tCO₂ for the transport and storage of CO₂ is reasonable in some regions, but not in others. Moreover, CCS deployment is more sensitive to transport and storage costs in some regions than others, particularly China.