Post-Combustion Capture or Direct Air Capture in Decarbonizing US Natural Gas Power?

24 January 2020, Version 1
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

This analysis investigates the cost of carbon capture from the US natural gas-fired electricity generating fleet comparing two technologies: Post-Combustion Capture and Direct Air Capture (DAC). Many Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC) units are suitable for post-combustion capture. We estimated the cost of post-combustion retrofits and investigated the most important unit characteristics contributing to this cost. Units larger than 350 MW, younger than 15 years, more efficient than 42% and with a utilization (capacity factor) higher than 0.5 are economically retrofittable. Counterintuitively, DAC (which is usually not considered for point-source capture) may be cheaper in addressing emissions from non-retrofittable NGCCs. DAC can also address the residual emissions from retrofitted plants. Moreover, economic challenges of post-combustion capture for small natural gas-fired units with low utilization, such as gas turbines, make DAC look favorable for these units. Considering the cost of post-combustion capture for the entire natural gas-related emissions after incorporating the impact of learning-by-doing for both carbon capture technologies, DAC is the cheaper capture solution for at least 1/3 of all emissions.

Keywords

Climate Change
Carbon capture and storage (CCS)
Direct Air Capture
post-combustion capture
Techno-economic Analysis
Natural Gas Power Plants
NGCC
Learning by Doing

Supplementary materials

Title
Description
Actions
Title
Manuscript
Description
Actions
Title
SI
Description
Actions
Title
SI
Description
Actions

Supplementary weblinks

Comments

Comments are not moderated before they are posted, but they can be removed by the site moderators if they are found to be in contravention of our Commenting Policy [opens in a new tab] - please read this policy before you post. Comments should be used for scholarly discussion of the content in question. You can find more information about how to use the commenting feature here [opens in a new tab] .
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy [opens in a new tab] and Terms of Service [opens in a new tab] apply.