7th IEAGHG CCS Cost Network Workshop

The 7^th edition of the IEAGHG CCS Cost Network Workshop was held in the Energy Academy building at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, on 12‑13 April 2023. The invite-only workshop was designed as a highly interactive, engaging, specialized and streamlined event for international experts across the CCS value chain. All delegates were encouraged to share knowledge and expertise in the field of CCS costs and costing methodologies with a view to addressing cost bottlenecks inhibiting the commercial deployment of CCS technologies.

The workshop commenced with a welcome address by the host, Machteld van den Broek, University of Groningen, where she spoke warmly of her Groningen heritage.The workshop was structured into 5 technical sessions and 3 breakout sessions. Timothy Fout, NETL chaired the first technical session on Industrial capture, where Jan Theulen, Heidelberg Materials and Simon Roussanaly, SINTEF Energy Research presented on 'Heidelberg Materials view on CCS value chain' and 'Technoeconomic analysis of solvent-based CO₂ capture from cement', respectively. Jan addresses how the value chain has a profound influence on the overall costs of CCS and Simon presented a study that offers novel learnings on the cost of rolling-out pioneering CCS chains from inland European emitters.

The second session, on FEED studies, was chaired by Jon Gibbins, University of Sheffield. Speakers for this session included Bill Elliot, Bechtel Corporation, and Jorge Martorell, University of Texas at Austin. Bill made a presentation entitled 'The cost of carbon capture plants; say it ain't so, Joe' where he presented findings from the open-access FEED study for a post-combustion CO₂ capture plant retrofit to the Panda Sherman NGCC plant in Texas. Jorge delivered a study on lesson leant from the Mustang FEED study and its comparison to the Panda Sherman FEED study. Jorge highlighted how site-specific factors (such as availability of cooling water or extracted steam) significantly impact on cost, possibly more so than the choice of technology.

Howard Herzog, MIT, chaired the third technical session; on Direct Air Capture (DAC). Speakers were Jan Wurzbacher, Climeworks, and Tim Fout, NETL. Jan presented on the cost trajectory of DAC and lessons learned to leverage on future cost reduction mechanisms for DAC systems and Tim presented DAC case studies on both sorbent and solvent systems. Tim discussed the performances of these systems under a broad spectrum of sensitivities that included but were not limited to capacity factor, capture fraction, solvent/sorbent cost, solvent make-up rate, sorbent lifetime and capital cost. 

The fourth session, on 'Offshore CO₂ Transport and Storage' was chaired by Sean Mccoy, University of Calgary. Johannes Kalunka, ExxonMobil, discussed the costs of CO₂ transport and storage for offshore storage, while Boudewijn Reniers, TotalEnergies and Sander Nijman, Shell reviewed lessons from the Dutch Aramis project. The Aramis project aims to reduce CO₂ emissions for hard-to-abate industries by providing CO₂ transport to unlock storage capacity for the industry, where the CO₂ will be stored in depleted offshore gas fields, deep under the North Sea. The project will implement an 'open access' philosophy so that other industrial customers and storage fields can be added incrementally to the system.

The fifth session, Outlook/Scenarios for CCS was chaired my Machteld van den Broek, University of Groningen, where Harmen Sytze de Boer, PBL, and Mathilde Fajardy, IEA, spoke on the 'impacts of CCS costs on the deployment of CCS in Integrated assessment models (IAMs) and 'CCUS in clean energy transitions', respectively. In this session, the speakers discussed the impacts of modelling findings based on a cocktail of input assumptions and described how the findings can inform decision making on the commercial deployment of CCS.

In the evening of the first day of the workshop, exchanges took place in a casual and informal setting during a 3-hour dinner, kindly sponsored by the Global CCS Institute, at the NOK restaurant at the Forum Groningen. From the Forum Groningen's rooftop, workshop delegates were treated to a panoramic view of the beautiful city of Groningen.

The plenary sessions were followed, on the second day, by three breakout sessions. Topics for the breakout sessions included 'high capture efficiencies', 'blue/green hydrogen' and 'outlook for onshore transport and storage costs'. The session on 'high capture efficiencies' was moderated by Jeffrey Hoffman, DOE, where Mathieu Lucquiaud, University of Sheffield, summarised his recent study on 'the cost of zero residual CO₂ emission hydrogen: A techno-economic analysis of steam methane reforming with carbon capture and storage'. The second and third breakouts on 'blue/green hydrogen' and 'outlook for onshore transport and storage costs' were moderated by Niall Mac Dowell, Imperial College London, and Candice Paton, Enhance Energy, respectively. Howard presided over the final session, where moderators summarised the discussions and key takeaways from the breakout sessions.

Howard and Machteld presented the closing remarks that brought the workshop to a close.

The proceedings of the workshop will be published for open access on the IEAGHG website in due course. Previous proceedings of the workshop and publications of the CCS Cost Network can be accessed on https://ieaghg.org/networks/costs-network.

Membership of the Steering Committee for the 7^th IEAGHG CCS Cost Network Workshop:

• 1.Keith Burnard, IEAGHG (Co-Chair)
• 2.Machteld van den Broek, University of Groningen (Co-Chair/Host)
• 3.Abhoyjit Bhown, EPRI
• 4.Sara Budinis, IEA
• 5.Timothy Fout, NETL
• 6.Jon Gibbins, UKCCSRC
• 7.Howard Herzog, MIT
• 8.Sean McCoy, University of Calgary
• 9.Mike Monea, Monea CCS Services
• 10.Edward Rubin, Carnegie Mellon University
• 11.Abdul'Aziz Aliyu, IEAGHG (Secretariat)