CO2 transport for fast-track CCS: Balancing economics and environmental impacts in industrial clusters

• A Tiered Multi-Objective Optimization (TMOO) method is developed. • Industrial cluster CO 2 transport options were assessed based on cost and LCA impacts. • Power consumed in CO 2 conditioning dominates the cost and LCA impacts. • A low-pressure CO 2 pipeline transport is most optimal for the cluster. • Pipeline construction delays favor CO 2 transport by barges. Carbon Capture and Sequestration is a key technology for decarbonizing energy-intensive industries and power generation. To accelerate its deployment, affordable and efficient carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) transport solutions are needed. In this paper a tiered multi-objective optimization method is developed to predict a hierarchy of CO 2 transport strategies, balancing the financial costs and environmental impacts. The method is applied to optimize the strategies for collecting CO 2 from five energy-intensive industries in the North Sea Port industrial cluster. The results show that a low pressure (35 bar) CO 2 collection pipeline network and a point-to-point CO 2 transport by barges (the ‘hub and spoke’ design) are the two most optimal (tier 1) competitive strategies. Lower-tier solutions involving using higher pressure (110 bar) pipelines and ‘milk round’ shipping of CO 2 , come at greater costs and larger environmental impacts. The costs and environmental impacts are largely attributed to the electricity consumed in CO 2 compression and liquefaction. The use of a low-carbon electricity mix is shown to reduce the environmental impacts by ca 80 % across all the scenarios studied. The study concludes that paying for unabated emissions during two years of construction of the CO 2 pipelines nearly doubles the cost of the project, making CO 2 shipping the more cost-effective solution.