CO2 | Shipping

CO2 |  Shipping

Among the technologies for climate change mitigation, carbon capture and storage is considered as a technically
and economically viable option to reduce CO2 emissions from hard-to-abate industrial sectors. When it comes
to CO2 logistics, ship-based chains are emerging as an attractive alternative to other CO2 transport modes (e.g.,
pipelines), as these could exhibit lower operational risk, higher infrastructural flexibility, and lower costs.

This work provides insights into the cost of optimal ship-based CO2 transport chains at a European level, by proposing
a detailed economic model of CO2 transport by ship, including all the echelons of the infrastructure (i.e., liquefaction, buffer storage, loading, ship, conditioning, and unloading).

The final aim is to determine the minimum CO2 transport cost from Southern Europe to North Sea sequestration. Different unloading scenarios (port-to-port, port-to-floating storage and injection, and port-to-direct offshore unloading) and carbon reduction targets are
investigated. The minimum unitary transport cost is 26 €/t of CO2 for transporting 103 Mt/y

Ship capacity matters: for this transport method to be economically viable, ships must possess a high CO2 cargo capacity (say at least 30 kt, significantly larger than the <10 kt ships to be used in the Northern Lights project:

With high-capacity ships, the predicted unit cost of CO2 transport typically ranges between 25 and 35 €/t, depending mostly on the travel distance, the capital charge factor (heavily influenced by the discount rate), and ship fuel cos

In the short term, it is preferable (as more cost-effective) to develop local CO2 transport and storage infrastructures in Southern Europe, potentially based on pipelines. However, as the CCS supply chain evolves around significant industrial clusters and the transported CO2 volumes increase sufficiently to justify the deployment of high-capacity ships, transporting CO2 to the North Sea becomes a viable option in the long-term.

CCS and Hydrogen