D01 - Cost Reduction Potential for CCUS in China

The ARP1 report for the ADB CCUS Center for
Excellence (Guangdong) Project RDTA8714-D01

Cost Reduction Potential for CCUS in China

Zhigang Jia, Xi Liang, Muxin Liu, Lihua Ren

Executive Summary

Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas, and the bulkof from the combustion of fossil fuels. If we can develop technology to captureand utilization the fossil fuel CO₂ in a cost-effective andenvironmentally sound manner, we will be able to enjoy the benefits of fossilfuel use throughout the next century. Carbon Dioxide Capture Utilisation andStorage (CCUS) is a new technology which is considered to be an effective toreduce greenhouse gas.

As we know, China is one of the major emitters of CO₂,and the CO₂ emissions from coal account for about 80% of the totalindustrial carbon emissions. China total emissions have become the first in theworld, and China's coal-based energy structure will not change in the shortterm. With the continuous development of the economy and the continuousimprovement of people's living standards, CO₂ emissions willcontinue to increase in the future.

The difficulty in applying and popularizing CCUStechnology is that it is cost too expensive. At present, it is generally consideredthat the investment cost of CCUS projects is relatively high, and the totalcost of process is approximately 60-120$/tCO₂ including capture,transportation and storage, which leads to the increase of product cost in manyindustrial sectors. Also the problem of low enthusiasm of enterprises isunavoidable. But under the global carbon capture and storage research program,it aims to reduce cost to 40 $/t.

This report outlines the key requirement for analyzingthe cost of CCUS in various stages. The report also makes study emphasis on thecost reduction potential of CCUS in China, as well as the ways and measures toreduce the cost of CCUS.