Date of Award

1-1-2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Petroleum Engineering

First Advisor

Minou Rabiei

Abstract

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is a technology value-chain which can help reduce CO2 emissions while ensuring sustainable development of the energy and industrial sectors. However, CCUS requires large-scale deployment of infrastructure for capturing feasible amounts of CO2 that can be capital intensive for stakeholders. In addition, CCUS deployment leads to the development of extensive pipeline corridors, which can be inconsistent with the requirements for future CCUS infrastructure expansion. With the implementation and growth of CCUS technology in the states of North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah in mind, this dissertation has two major goals: (a) to identify feasible corridors for CO2 pipelines; and (b) to develop a CCUS infrastructure network which minimizes project cost. To address these goals, the dissertation introduces the CCSHawk methodology that develops pipeline routes and CCUS infrastructure networks using a variety of techniques such as multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), graph network algorithms, natural language processing and linear network optimization. The pipeline route and CCUS network model are designed using open-source data, specifically: geo-information, emission quantities and reservoir properties. The MCDA of the study area reveals that North Dakota, central Wyoming and Eastern Colorado have the highest amount of land suitable for CO2 pipeline corridors. The optimized graph network routing algorithm reduces the overall length of pipeline routes by an average of 4.23% as compared to traditional routing algorithms while maintaining low environmental impact. The linear optimization of the CCUS infrastructure shows that the cost for implementing the technology in the study area can vary between $24.05/tCO2 to $42/tCO2 for capturing 20 to 90MtCO2. The analysis also reveals that there would be a declining economic impact of existing pipeline infrastructure on the future growth of CCUS networks ranging between 0.01 to 1.62$/tCO2 with increasing CO2 capture targets. This research is significant, as it establishes a technique for pipeline route modeling and CCUS economic analysis highly adaptable to various geographic regions. To the best of the author's knowledge, it is also the first economic analysis that considers the effect of pre-existing infrastructure on the growth of CCUS technology for the region. Furthermore, the pipeline route model establishes a schema for considering not only environmental factors but also ecological factors for the study area.

Download

Share

COinS