Optimal design of European supply chains for carbon capture and storage from industrial emission sources including pipe and ship transport

Carbon capture and storage technologies are key to remove carbon dioxide emissions from hard-to-decarbonise industries, such as steel, cement and refining sectors. A multi-echelon mixed integer linear programming model is developed for the optimal design of carbon capture and storage supply chains from industrial sources at a European level. The model is based on exact coordinates and comprises all the stages of a carbon capture and storage chain in Europe, including multiple capture plants across industrial sources, CO₂ transport through pipelines or ships to existing docks, onshore and/or offshore geological storage basins. The optimal infrastructure is optimised in economic terms by pursuing either country-wise or Europe-wide carbon reduction targets. Removing 50% of industrial CO₂ emissions in each country costs 60.5 €/t, which increases up to 81.4 €/t if onshore storage is forbidden. Variations of carbon reduction target are analysed. Although CO₂ transport by pipeline dominates in terms of volumes, ships can have an important role for Southern Europe countries, if CO₂ storage is restricted to offshore North Sea basins. The setting of a Europe-wide reduction target produces a slight decrease in costs in all analysed scenarios.