Carbon Capture and Utilization in the Industrial Sector

The fabrication and manufacturing of industrial commodities such as iron, glass and cement is carbon-intensive. A major reason capture of carbon dioxide from flue gases of industrial processes has not been widely adopted as a climate mitigation strategy is due to the lack of economic incentives for capturing CO₂ on a scale that will impact climate. Yet, abatement opportunities do exist for the industrial sector, provided the scale of such processes is aligned well with CO₂ utilization. This is important given that this sector accounts for 23% of total global emissions. This work develops a model that examines the full cost of separating, compressing and transporting CO₂ of various industrial processes (sources), and pairing them with appropriate utilization opportunities (sinks). We find that – given the relatively higher concentrations of CO₂ in flue gases from industrial processes – the full cost of abatement is lower than that of the power sector. Further, we find truck transportation is generally the low-cost alternative compared to pipeline transport for small volumes indicative of this kind of capture activity (100 kt CO₂/a). We apply this methodology to a regional case study, which shows steel and cement manufacturing as having the lowest levelized cost of abatement.