A regional CO2 pipeline will save money and the environment, study reveals

A NEW study has shown that a CO2 pipeline network would the most cost effective way of implementing carbon capture and storage (CCS) for the region.

The study, which was commissioned by CO2Sense Yorkshire and an industry group consisting of firms such as Drax, National Grid, AMEC and Air Products, builds on previous work showing the potential of the network and the finance/support structures that could be introduced to enable its development.

The pipeline would link up industrial emitters from across the region and transport carbon dioxide into storage locations in the North Sea.

This would enable faster deployment of CCS technology in the region than having several individual pipelines from the various large emitters in the region.

According to new figures the pipeline would have the capacity to initially carry 40 million tonnes of CO2 per year and would lead to savings of £250m costing approximately £650m to build.

This compares with early carbon capture projects building individual ‘point to point’ pipelines, which would cost £900m.

Stephen Brown, director of CCS at CO2Sense Yorkshire, said ‘Commercial scale CO2 capture projects in the region are likely to be developed gradually over a 15 to 20 year period.”

He added: “Constructing a high capacity CO2 pipeline in the early years will enable industry to invest in CO2 capture projects with the confidence of knowing that transportation and storage was available to them more cheaply than if they built and operated their own pipeline and store.”

The study also found that investing in additional pipeline capacity in the initial development pahse would be cost effective even if subsequent developers didn’t join the network for up to 11 years.

The approach also minimises the planning, environment and technical impact in comparison with ‘point to point’ pipelines.