title: The Economic Merits of Flexible Carbon Capture and Sequestration as a Compliance Strategy with the Clean Power Plan.
abstract: Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) may be a key technology for achieving large CO2emission reductions. Relative to "normal" CCS, "flexible" CCS retrofits include solvent storage that allows the generator to temporarily reduce the CCS parasitic load and increase the generator's net efficiency, capacity, and ramp rate. Due to this flexibility, flexible CCS generators provide system benefits that normal CCS generators do not, which could make flexible CCS an economic CO2emission reduction strategy. Here, we estimate the system-level cost effectiveness of reducing CO2emissions with flexible CCS compared to redispatching (i.e., substituting gas- for coal-fired electricity generation), wind, and normal CCS under the Clean Power Plan (CPP) and a hypothetical more stringent CO2emission reduction target ("stronger CPP"). Using a unit commitment and economic dispatch model, we find flexible CCS achieves more cost-effective emission reductions than normal CCS under both reduction targets, indicating that policies that promote CCS should encourage flexible CCS. However, flexible CCS is less cost effective than wind under both reduction targets and less and more cost effective than redispatching under the CPP and stronger CPP, respectively. Thus, CCS will likely be a minor CPP compliance strategy but may play a larger role under a stronger emission reduction target.
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University , 129 Baker Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, United States.
authors.forename: Michael T
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3031-5041
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Craig
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University , 129 Baker Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, United States.
authors.forename: Paulina
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jaramillo
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University , 129 Baker Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, United States.
authors.forename: Haibo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhai
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University , 129 Baker Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, United States.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Klima
mesh_terms: D002244:Carbon; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D057965:Carbon Sequestration; D003031:Coal / Q000191:economics; D011210:Power Plants / Q000191:economics*
chemical_list: D003031:Coal; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D002244:Carbon