Modeling a Carbon Capture, Transport, and Storage Infrastructure for Europe

In this paper, we develop a model to analyze the economics of carbon capture, transport, and storage (CCTS) in the wake of expected rising CO2 prices. We present a scalable mixed integer, multiperiod, welfareoptimizing network model for Europe, called CCTS-Mod. The model incorporates endogenous decisions on carbon capture, pipeline and storage investments, as well as capture, flow and injection quantities based on given costs, CO2 prices, storage capacities, and point source emissions. Given full information about future costs of CCTS-technology, and CO2 prices, the model determines a cost minimizing strategy on whether to purchase CO2 certificates, or to abate the CO2 through investments into a CCTS-chain on a site by site basis. We apply the model to analyze different scenarios for the deployment of CCTS in Europe, e.g., under high and low CO2 prices, respectively. We find that beyond CO2 prices of (sic)50 per t, CCTS can contribute to the decarbonization of Europe's industry sectors, as long as one assumes sufficient storage capacities (onshore and/or offshore). We find that CCTS is only viable for the power sector if the CO2 certificate price exceeds (sic)75 per t.