1,720,998 research outputs found
Design and optimisation of European supply chains for carbon capture, transport, and sequestration
Full text linkThe global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses experienced an exponential increase compared to pre-industrial levels and, among these, CO2 is the most abundant, with an overall emission that rose globally from 2 Gt/year in 1850 to over 35 Gt/year in 2010. Carbon capture and storage has been highlighted among the most promising options to decarbonise the energy sector, especially considering the European context which heavily relies on fossil fuel-fed facilities. When dealing with the strategic design and planning of a European carbon capture and storage infrastructure, the necessity of employing quantitative mathematical tools to treat the combinatorial complexity of such large-scale and multi-echelon networks clearly emerges. In this work, mixed integer linear programming models were utilised for carbon capture and storage supply chain optimisation at European scale. The modelling framework has been developed according to a mixed integer linear programming model representing Europe in terms of emissions from large-stationary sources (i.e., coal and gas power plants). Regarding the capture facilities, post-combustion, pre-combustion and oxy-fuel combustion have been included as possible options, whereas both pipelines and ships have been described in techno-economic terms as potential transport means. The European geological storage potential has been retrieved from the EU GeoCapacity Project. Uncertainty in geological storage capacities has emerged among the major challenges for fostering an effective implementation of such complex systems. Accordingly, a tailored mathematical technique has been employed to tackle such risks and obtain optimal network configurations in terms of resiliency of the transport infrastructure. Then, a risk assessment has been incorporated within the modelling framework. This evaluation accounted for the societal risk generated by a potential leakage in the transport system (quantified according to the seriousness of the hazard) and was coupled with the choice of installing risk mitigation options (e.g., concrete slabs, deep burying, marker tape, surveillance). The societal response to carbon capture and storage has been further analysed through the concept of social acceptance, described through the amount of risk perceived by a given population inhabiting the region where an infrastructure is planned. The social response has been modelled as proportional to the project size, to the amount of population and to the differential behaviour of the European countries. Besides, a set of constraints has been employed to balance the spread of installation and operation costs among countries, with the aim of enhancing economic costs share and cooperation policies between the different players. Finally, a preliminary analysis has been assessed on possible utilisation pathways for carbon conversion and utilisation into products.
The carbon capture and storage models were optimised using the GAMS software through the CPLEX solver. Results from the deterministic framework demonstrated the good European potential for carbon sequestration and gave some indications on the total cost for CO2 capture, transport and sequestration. Capture costs were found to be the major contribution to total cost, while transport and sequestration costs were never higher than 10% of the investment required to set in motion and operate the whole network. The overall costs for a European carbon capture and storage SC were estimated in the range of 27-38 €/t of CO2. The risk generated by uncertainty in geological storage capacities was found negligible with respect to the overall cost of the network, but slightly higher investments for transport and sequestration were needed to improve the resiliency of the system. The societal risk-constrained optimisation demonstrated the possibility to design a safe transport infrastructure with minor additional costs. In fact, mitigation actions never represented more than 11% of cost for installing and operating the transport network. However, no feasible solution could be found for a carbon reduction target higher than 50%, because of the unacceptable level of societal risk. When maximising social acceptance from the public (through minimising risk perception), results led to a massive exploitation of offshore sequestration solutions with a (possibly unacceptable) total costs of about 50.88 €/t of sequestered CO2, i.e. +34% with respect to the economic optimum, due to a more complex network configuration characterised by high transport (+434%) and sequestration (+853%) costs. A multi-objective optimisation analysis, however, allowed identifying a possible intermediate solution between the two conflicting objectives (i.e., economics against acceptance), capable of limiting risk perception without excessively compromising the economic performance of the network. Regarding the model including costs share mechanisms among European countries, results showed that the additional European investment for cooperation (max. +2.6% with respect to a non-cooperative network) might not constitute a barrier towards the installation and operation of such more effective network designs. Finally, a preliminary model investigated the production of chemicals from CO2 (specifically, polyether carbonate polyols and methanol) as an alternative to geological sequestration. The results showed that CO2 conversion and utilisation mainly affects the total cost of the supply chain, which could be reduced with respect to a mere carbon capture and storage network. On the other hand, the contribution of CO2 utilisation over capture in terms of environmental benefits was shown to be almost negligible
Strategic optimisation of biomass-based energy supply chains for sustainable mobility
No full textThe identification of alternative and sustainable energy sources has been one of the fundamental research goals of the last two decades, and the transport sector plays a key role in this challenge. Electric cars and biofuel fed vehicles may contribute to tackle this formidable issue. According to this perspective, a multi-echelon supply chain is here investigated considering biomass cultivation, transport, conversion into bioethanol or bioelectricity, distribution, and final usage in alternative bifuel (ethanol and petrol) and electric vehicles. Multiperiod and spatially explicit features are introduced in a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) modelling framework where economic (in terms of Net Present Value) and environmental (in terms of Greenhouse Gases emissions) objectives are simultaneously taken into account. The first and second generation bioethanol production supply chain is matched with a biopower production supply chain assessing multiple technologies. Both corn grain and stover are considered as biomass sources. In the environmental analysis, the impact on emissions caused by indirect Land Use Change (iLUC) effects is also assessed. Results will show the efficacy of the methodology at providing stakeholders with a quantitative tool to optimise the economic and environmental performance of different supply chain configurations
Optimizing the Design of Supply Chains for Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration in Europe: A Preliminary Assessment
Full text linkCarbon capture and storage represents a key technology for reducing the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. In addition to this, carbon utilization has often been considered as a viable option for increasing the environmental benefits, while decreasing costs of the mere capture and storage system. This contribution proposes
an optimization framework for the design of carbon capture, transport, utilization, and storage supply chains in the European context. Based on literature data, technologies converting CO2 into methanol and polyether carbonate polyols were selected as the most promising and incorporated into the optimization framework. The goal is to reduce
50% of European emissions from large stationary sources by 2030. Results highlight that, under our assumptions, the significance of carbon utilization in terms of a reduction of the environmental impact is likely to be a minor one: considering the current state of technologies only about 2.4% of the overall CO2 emitted from large stationary sources
can be removed by chemical utilization. However, significant benefits can be obtained in terms of overall cost reduction thanks to revenues deriving from the chemicals being produced
Managing technology performance risk in the strategic design of biomass-based supply chains for energy in the transport sector
No full textBiomass has long been considered one of the most promising feedstock as an alternative primary source to substitute traditional fuels in the transport sectors. However, both biomass intrinsic variability and the fact that several conversion technologies have not reached full maturity make the economic assessment of the production system performance rather difficult. This paper proposes a quantitative approach for the strategic design and optimisation of biomass-based supply chains under uncertainty on technology conversion efficiency. The methodology is based on regret theory and allows quantifying both risk and regret with respect to benchmark economic outputs. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming is employed to represent and optimise the profitability of a multi-echelon, multi-period and spatially explicit biomass-based supply chain for bioethanol and bioelectricity production where several conversion technologies are simultaneously taken into account. The modelling framework includes biomass cultivation, transport, conversion, distribution and final usage in alternative fuel vehicles (running either on bioethanol or bioelectricity). Results demonstrate how the methodology can help policy-makers and investors assessing technological options according to their risk aversion attitude
Economic optimisation of European supply chains for CO2 capture, transport and sequestration
No full textDiminishing the anthropogenic generation of greenhouse gases is one of the key challenges of the twenty-first century. Considering the current state of affairs, it is barely impossible to reduce emissions without relying on CO2 capture and sequestration technologies. In a situation where a large-scale infrastructure is yet to be developed, mathematical programming techniques can provide valuable tools to decision makers for optimising their choices. Here, a mixed integer linear programming framework for the strategic design and planning of a large European supply chain for carbon geological storage is presented. The European territory is discretised so as to allow for a spatially explicit definition of large emission clusters. As regards CO2 capture, post-combustion, oxy-fuel combustion and pre-combustion are considered as possible technological options, whereas both pipelines (inshore and offshore) and ships are taken into account as possible transport means. The overall network is economically optimised over a 20 years’ time horizon to provide the geographic location and scale of capture and sequestration sites as well as the most convenient transport means and routes. Different scenarios (capturing up to 70% of European CO2 emissions from large stationary sources) are analysed and commented on. Results demonstrate the good European potential for carbon sequestration and give some indications on the total cost for CO2 capture, transport and sequestration. Capture costs are found to be the major contribution to total cost, while transport and sequestration costs are never higher than 10% of the investment required to set in motion and operate the whole network. The overall costs for a European carbon capture, transport and storage supply chain were estimated in the range of 27–38 €/ton of CO2
Optimising biomass-based energy supply chains for sustainable mobility
No full textThe identification of alternative and sustainable energy sources has been one of the fundamental research goals of the last two decades and electric cars or biofuel fed vehicles may contribute to tackle this formidable issue. According to this perspective, a multi-echelon supply chain is here investigated considering biomass cultivation, transport, conversion into bioethanol or bioelectricity, distribution and final usage in alternative bifuel (ethanol and petrol) and electric vehicles. Multiperiod and spatially explicit features are introduced in a Mixed Integer Linear Programming modelling framework where economic and environmental objectives are simultaneously taken into account assessing multiple technologies. Results will show the efficacy of the methodology at providing stakeholders with a quantitative tool to optimise the economic and environmental performance of different supply chain configuration
Optimizing Carbon Capture and Sequestration Chains from Industrial Sources Under Seismic Risk Constraints
No full textCarbon dioxide is the leading anthropogenic greenhouse gas in terms of emissions from carbon-intensive
industries, such as cement plants, steel mills and refineries. The deployment of CO2 (carbon) capture and
sequestration (CCS) technologies plays an important role in reducing CO2 emissions on a global scale. When
optimizing the CCS supply chains for the Italian peninsula, additional complexity is brought up by the Country
seismic profile. This contribution provides a techno-economic assessment and optimization of a comprehensive
CCS from Italian industrial stationary sources by aim of a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming
modeling framework. In particular, the model is conceived to simultaneously optimize the economic (i.e.,
minimum cost) and seismic (i.e., minimum risk) performance of a CCS system in the geographic setting of Italy.
In this work, a case study aiming at a carbon reduction target of 50 % is presented by discussing the
corresponding set of Pareto optimal solutions. Results show a trade-off between the two conflicting objectives,
where the configuration with the minimum specific CO2 avoidance cost (68.8 €/t) is characterized by the highest
value of risk (13.5 ruptures/year)
Assessing technological options in biomass-based energy supply chains through a quantitative methodology for risk and regret evaluation
No full textBiomass has been considered one of the most promising feedstock as an alternative primary source to substitute traditional fuels in the transport sectors. However, both biomass intrinsic variability and the fact that several conversion technologies have not reached full maturity make the economic assessment of the production system performance rather difficult. This contribution proposes a quantitative approach for the strategic design and optimisation of biomass-based supply chains under uncertainty on the technology conversion efficiency. The methodology is based on regret theory and is applied to quantify both risk and regret with respect to benchmark economic outputs. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming approach is employed to represent and optimise the profitability of a multi-echelon, multi-period and spatially explicit biomass-based supply chain for bioethanol and bioelectricity production where several conversion technologies are simultaneously taken into account. The entire supply chain is optimised in terms of maximum industrial financial result, while constraining the expected values for risk and regret by placing a bound on them through the risk aversion attitude by investors. Results demonstrate how the approach can help policy-makers and investors assessing technological options according to their risk aversion attitude
Utilization or Sequestration for Captured CO2 from Cement Plants?
No full textThe scope of this work is to assess the economic competitivity of optimized CO2 capture and utilization process (CCU) for e-methanol production with respect to CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) in three locations (southern Italy, northern Germany, northeastern Egypt) and two economic scenarios (short- and long-term) for the cost of renewable energy technologies. The final aim is to determine the optimal sizing and operation of the process units of the system by minimizing the total costs to be sustained by a cement producer. At a methanol selling price of 550 /t, which is consistent with the current market price, CCS is economically more competitive than CCU in the short-term scenario in all locations. In the long-term scenario, due to the reduced costs of renewable energy technologies, CCU becomes the preferable option in a large majority of the assessed cases. In the long-term scenario, the breakeven methanol selling price in Italy with respect to CCS was found to increase from 384 /t to 570 /t if low-cost hydrogen storage is not available and H2 is stored in pressurized vessels (as alternative to caverns). In Germany, from 542 /t to 778 /t. In Egypt, from 402 to 501 /t. Overall, this study shows that e-methanol production from captured CO2 in European countries may be competitive with e-methanol produced in more favorable locations, such as Egypt, only in the long-term, at the condition of a substantial cost reduction of renewable energy technologies, and of the persistency of a differential cost of capital with respect to renewables-rich emerging countries
Optimization of carbon capture and sequestration networks: A case study on hard-to-abate industry in Türkiye
Full text linkIn Türkiye, carbon dioxide emissions from the industrial sector represent the second-highest share among all sectors, following those from the energy sector. This study considers carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) chains for significantly reducing emissions from Turkish industrial sector, comprising cement plants, iron and steel facilities, and refineries. A nationwide CCS network is optimized using a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) framework to minimize costs. The best economic optimization results indicate a minimum specific CO2 avoidance cost of 67 € per ton for achieving a 10% carbon reduction target (CRT), up to 86 € per ton for a 50% decarbonization
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