An Assessment of the Potential for CO₂ Storage in the Indian Subcontinent

Publication Overview

This project aims to:

• Update the IEAGHG R&D programme CO₂ sources database with all the major current and planned industrial sources of CO₂ in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (the updated CO₂ sources database is available from the IEAGHG R&D Programme);
• Identify the CO₂ storage capacity of each of these three countries in oil and gas fields and coal seams and ranks the sedimentary basins in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in terms of their saline aquifer CO₂ storage potential (sedimentary basins north of the frontal thrusts of the Himalayas were not investigated);
• Identify the local costs of the main elements of the CO₂ capture and storage chain, such that they could be used to produce marginal CO₂ abatement cost curves in a future project;
• Provide a geological CO₂ storage potential GIS of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Publication Summary

CCS has moved centre-stage in the last 5-6 years as a major alternative for large scale CO₂ emission mitigation. However CCS is currently associated with around a 25% energy penalty due to the additional energy required for capture, transport and storage of CO₂. This increases the costs of CCS. Capture cost reduction is the technological crux as it contributes around 60-80% to the CCS system chain costs, especially for penetrating the Indian markets (Shahi 2007). Many research initiatives are currently ongoing globally in this direction. Finding better and more energy efficient adsorbents is a focus area for research. Global research thrust is gradually moving to pre-combustion capture with potentially higher cost reduction possibilities.

This study has estimated the CO₂ capture and storage costs for global and Indian conditions and made an approximation of future cost developments. Although much technical data exists on the global level, data for Indian conditions is still limited. Therefore the estimates made in this report should only be seen as an initial investigation of Indian CCS costs on which to build future studies.