Estimation of CO2 pipeline transport cost in South Korea based on the scenarios

This study estimates the least cost CO2 pipeline specifications and corresponding transport costs for the offshore CCS in South Korea by using engineering-economic model. The major design factors are diameters and thicknesses of pipeline, number of boosters, and pressure conditions. First this study sets up three transport scenarios which are divided by the combination of three CO2 capture plants. The storage site is fixed Ulleung Basin whose storage capacity is estimated to around 5 GtCO(2). The capture rates of CO2 at each plants are assumed to be 1 MtCO(2)/y similar to 3 MtCO(2)/y. We calculate the pressure losses, number of boosters, thicknesses of pipeline and corresponding pipeline costs for eight diameters of pipeline in the range of 6 inch to 20 inch in 2 inch steps to comply with the standard pipe size. The pipeline diameter that shows minimum cost is selected as an optimum pipeline diameter. Scenario 1 has only one capture site, Boryeong Thermal Power Plant. The onshore and offshore transport route lengths are 470 km and 60 km, respectively. The optimum pipeline diameters at the transport rate of 1 MtCO(2)/y and 3 MtCO(2)/y are 8 inch and 14 inch, respectively. The required number of boosters at the transport rate of 1 MtCO(2)/y and 3 MtCO(2)/y are 2 and 1, respectively. The estimated transport costs at the transport rate of 1 MtCO(2)/y and 3 MtCO(2)/y are $23 and $11, respectively. The scale up effect significantly reduces the transport cost at 3 MtCO(2)/y compared to 1 MtCO(2)/y. Scenario 2 has same transport route with Scenario 1, but has additional capture plant at Hadong in the midway of route. The cost per unit CO2 of Scenario 2 is lower than Scenario 1 due to the scale up effect. Scenario 3 has two capture plants, one is Boryeong Power Plant and the other is Samcheok Power Plant. Unlike Scenario 2, the transport route is not overlapped except the offshore route. The CO2 transported from two power plants get together at Ulsan Harbor and are transported to offshore pipeline. Because of non-overlapping two transport routes in onshore section, the overall cost is comparable to Scenario 1. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC B Y-NC- ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).