Per Arne wrote this blog post for us as part of the focus on the Costs chapter in March and April. It is a great read and is obviously relevant to the Transport chapter so we have decided to share it again. Daniel Oyston, Knowledge Sharing Online Community Manager.

Go to the City centre of Paris, New York or Beijing, ask three cab drivers – “How much does it cost?” and you may at best be asked, “Going where?” and “How many are you?”… unless you are taken in.

There is not one generic answer to the question on the cost of carbon dioxide transport in the CCS context. Maybe the following could add some clarity to the challenges of developing optimal transport for CCS. And yes, these challenges are less about technology than they are about planning and cost.

Only two modes of transport can cope with the scale of CCS schemes, pipelines and gas tankers. In the best of worlds sources and sinks are so co-located that only short, onshore and high-capacity pipelines will be needed. Obviously, the shorter the distance, the cheaper it is.

But not even in the long run when commercial and large scale conditions prevail (if ever?) will this be the case. Much less so in the coming ten to twenty years when early projects, initially competing for government subsidies, scramble to get started. In addition, certain factors will influence the choice of transport solutions, like geological and societal conditions for storage localization, timing of and opportunities for cluster developments, the actual volumes involved, project duration and maybe also the valuation of CO₂ in EOR.

Put in perspective, for CCS in Europe to significantly support the climate ambitions, some 250 to 400 million tonnes per annum should be stored away in 2030. This in turn means building a transport machine, which by volume far surpasses that of for instance the North Sea Oil or that of global LNG trade, with around 225 and 175 Mtpa respectively.

And this is to be in operation in less than nineteen years from now? For what many consider to be a waste product?

In a macro view, the challenge of the need for speed enhances the risk of suboptimal solutions that leads to higher costs.

“How much does it cost?” Well, there is some consensus in the literature, for example a one kilometer 24 inch pipeline installed onshore, would cost around €1.0-1.5M. For a 500km onshore pipeline and a large volume (~20 Mtpa) the transport cost could be €3-4/tonne and offshore some 20-30% higher. For ships, in the same case, the transport cost itself would be around €11/tonne of which the process of liquefying the gas would be approximately €5/tonne.

Are these generic numbers? No, these are case specific estimates with a set of underlying assumptions. Analysis shows the complementary cost properties of pipelines and ships available to be exploited, just as they have been for crude oil and natural gas transport.

Pipelines are CAPEX intensive, which gives high sensitivity to capacity utilization. The absolute bulk of CO₂ volumes will be piped, over time, in high flows and over short distances. Ships have proportionally higher OPEX but are more “scalable” in capacity, which is valuable in the ramp-up stages of CCS (and where there are waterways available!). Combining the two modes could prove both cost efficient and lower risk.

Does this help? It is at least a starter, but we must also place this in some estimated scenarios for how transport networks could evolve. The opportunities for scale effects are obvious and regional networks are in planning. Time for deployment, including permitting and financing, are other factors to consider when estimating total project costs. Since these are by nature large scale infrastructure projects, joint public-private initiatives are imperative. Governments should support with strong central (regional) planning. It is doable – if we start now!