Building the Cost Curves for CO₂ Storage: North America

Publication Overview

This report reviews the development of a CO₂ storage cost curve for North America, which covers on-shore USA and Canada. The study has been carried out by Battelle, USA in co-operation with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, Canada.

Publication Summary

A significant geological storage capacity for CO₂ (3 800 GtCO₂) has been identified within the USA and Canada. Annual emissions of CO₂ from large emission point sources in 2000 within this region equated to nearly 4 GtCO₂. Therefore, there is sufficient storage capacity within North America to store all of the year 2000 fossil fuel-related CO₂ emissions for nearly 1000 years. Even allowing for continued economic growth, the deployment of CO₂ capture and storage technologies in North America should not be constrained by a lack of potential storage capacity.

In total, over 2 000 large emission point sources were identified by the study. However, 500 of these plants represent 75% of the total annual emissions of CO₂. Concentrating early CO₂ capture and storage activities on these emission sources would make a significant impact on the region’s CO₂ emissions.

Most of the storage capacity identified is in deep saline formations. These reservoirs tend to be the least-well explored and hence warrant an intensive research effort to determine their true potential as storage reservoirs. It is noted that research on deep saline formations is a key focus area of the US Carbon Storage Programme and that a number of active CO₂ injection tests are now underway or planned in the USA to develop knowledge on the potential of these reservoirs.

In North America, many point sources lie either adjacent to or within 161 km (100 miles) of the potential storage opportunities, implying that extensive long distance pipelines for CO₂ transport may not be needed nor does there appear to be significant economic savings to be had from the operation of common trunk lines.

The overall costs for CO₂ storage in the USA were modeled to be effectively capped at about $12-15/tCO₂, with important yet limited resource available below $0/t CO₂.