Techno Economic and Environmental Analysis of CO2 Provision From Various Sources

Ref.
Ares(2018)1414571 - 14/03/2018
SUN-TO-LIQUID
PUBLIC REPORT:
TECHNO-ECONOMIC
AND ENVIRONMENTAL
ANALYSIS OF CO2
PROVISION FROM
VARIOUS SOURCES
Deliverable number: D1.3

Grant Agreement: 654408 (SUN-to-LIQUID)
Call identifier: H2020-LCE-2015-1-two-stage
Project full title: SUNlight-to-LIQUID:
Integrated solar-thermochemical synthesis
of liquid hydrocarbon fuels
Project start date: 01.01.2016
Project duration: 48 months

Grant Agreement: 654408
Call identifier: H2020‐LCE‐2015‐1‐two‐stage
Project full title: SUN‐to‐LIQUID
Integrated solar‐thermochemical synthesis of liquid hydrocarbon fuels
Project start date: 01.01.2016
Project duration: 48 months

SUN‐to‐LIQUID
Public Report: Techno‐economic and environmental analysis of
CO2 provision from various sources

Authors:
Valentin Batteiger1, Christoph Falter1, José Luis Gálvez Martos2 , Javier Dufour2, Diego Iribarren2,
Affiliations:
1
Bauhaus Luftfahrt, Willy‐Messerschmitt Straße 1; 82024 Taufkirchen, Germany
2
IMDEA Energía, Avda. Ramón de la Sagra 3; 28935 Móstoles Madrid, Spain

Abstract:
The SUN‐to‐LIQUID project explores hydrocarbon fuel synthesis from CO2 and H2O, using
concentrated solar energy as a high‐temperature heat source. This public report investigates the
economic consequences and the environmental footprint of CO2 supply for solar fuel production.
Several industrial CO2 sources are readily available, and some attractive opportunities for co‐
location with early solar fuel plants are identified. However, the utilization potential of
conventional CO2 sources is severely constrained by sustainability, geographic location, and the
scale of sources and demand. Direct air capture provides a perspective of ubiquitous supply with
sustainable CO2. The projected cost and energy demand of air capture is significant, but tolerable
for solar fuel synthesis. Significant development effort is necessary to establish air capture at the
required time and scale.

Submission date:
14.03.2018

This document reflects the authors’ view only and the INEA must not be taken as responsible for any use that may be made of the
information it contains.
Techno‐economic and environmental analysis of H2020‐654408
CO2 provision from various sources SUN‐TO‐LIQUID

Summary
The public report “Techno‐economic and environmental analysis of CO2 provision from various
sources” discusses several sources of CO2 for solar hydrocarbon fuel synthesis, and provides input
to the upcoming economic and environmental analyses of SUN‐to‐LIQUID. Solar‐thermochemical
hydrocarbon fuels are produced from H2O and CO2 with concentrated solar radiation as an energy
source. The special importance of the CO2 feedstock arises from the economic and environmental
challenges of CO2 provision; the effort to provide H2O is much smaller, even at desert locations [1].
The economic impact of CO2 provision, in terms of a contribution to the total fuel production cost,
equates to an incremental additional cost of about 10 ct/Lfuel per 30‐40 €/tCO2. Air capture
technology is expected to set an upper bound on the future CO2 provision cost at a specific
location. A recent analysis projects operational cost of direct air capture to $42/tCO2 (35 €/tCO2)
which may translate into total CO2 provision costs of about 100 €/tCO2 once capital costs are
factored in and technological maturity is achieved [2]. Consequently, future cost differences remain
within few tens of cents per liter of fuel for all reasonable CO2 sources. This compares to projected
total costs of future solar‐thermochemical fuels synthesis on the order of 2 €/L [1].
In contrast to the moderate cost contribution, differences in the environmental impact of various
CO2 sources can be very significant. The emissions resulting from the combustion of chemically
similar solar and fossil fuels are essentially the same, and need to be balanced by prior carbon
capture to prevent further accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. Such a carbon‐neutral fuel path
can be achieved with direct air capture or biogenic carbon sources. However, the life‐cycle
emissions of CO2 sourcing need to be considered carefully. The high process energy demand of air
capture needs to be met by renewable energy or in form of recuperated heat from the solar fuel
plant to achieve low life‐cycle emissions. In case of biogenic sources, typical environmental impacts
of crop cultivation such as water footprint, GHG emissions or land use need to be addressed, as
well as the impact of CO2 transportation and logistics.
Industrial sources that provide carbon of fossil origin may not be the preferred option for solar
fuels. Usually, CO2 is formed as a by‐product of an industrial process and the utilization for
renewable fuel synthesis gives rise to a controversial debate about the allocation of the CO2
emission to the individual products along the full life‐cycle. The system analysis of the SOLAR‐JET
project considered a scenario with a natural gas fired power plant as a CO2 source; the total CO2
emissions were allocated on the basis of specific energy content, which resulted in life‐cycle
emissions exceeding the emissions of conventional jet fuel [1]. This example illustrates the great
importance of proper allocation, especially if non‐regenerative carbon sources are considered.
Another important consideration is the local and global scale of CO2 demand. The CO2 demand of
single solar fuel plants is expected to range from about 100 ktCO2/yr to few MtCO2/yr, mainly
depending on the choice of plant capacity starting from about thousand to ten thousands of barrel
per day fuel output. This local CO2 demand is well matched to many CO2 point sources, but logistic
challenges arise if the plant is sited at remote locations. A significant reduction of GHG emissions
from the global transportation sector requires the provision of some 100 MtCO2/yr to few GtCO2/yr,
depending on future global fuel demand and the fraction of substitution with solar fuels. Direct air
capture appears to be the preferred option for long‐term sustainable CO2 supply at the GtCO2/yr
scale. However, significant technological optimization, cost reduction and production capacity
scale‐up will be required to roll out direct air capture technology at installation rates that are
relevant for climate change mitigation.

Public Report D1.3 SUN‐to‐LIQUID / 2018 2

Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 5
1.1 General context of the SUN-to-LIQUID project ........................................................... 5
1.2 Current energy related CO2 emissions......................................................................... 7
2. CO2 demand for solar fuel production ........................................................................... 9
3. Analysis of CO2 provision from various sources ...................................................... 12
3.1 Direct air capture of CO2 .............................................................................................. 12
3.2 CO2 provision from seawater and fresh water .......................................................... 15
3.3 Biogenic sources ........................................................................................................... 16
3.3.1 Fermentation ............................................................................................................. 16
3.3.2 Further bioenergy sources ...................................................................................... 18
3.4 Capture from industrial processes .............................................................................. 19
3.4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 19
3.4.2 Natural gas upgrading ............................................................................................. 22
3.4.3 Hydrogen and ammonia production ...................................................................... 22
3.4.4 Petrochemical industries ......................................................................................... 22
3.4.5 Power plants ............................................................................................................. 23
3.4.5.1 Coal power plants ............................................................................................. 23
3.4.5.2 Post-combustion capture ................................................................................. 23
3.4.6 Iron and steel production ........................................................................................ 24
3.4.7 Cement production .................................................................................................. 25
3.4.8 Aluminum production ............................................................................................... 26
3.5 CO2 from natural wells .................................................................................................. 26
3.6 Suitability of CO2 from various sources for process ................................................. 27
4. CO2 transport and logistics ........................................................................................... 28
4.1 Road transport ............................................................................................................... 28
4.2 Ship transport ................................................................................................................. 28
4.3 Pipeline transport ........................................................................................................... 29
4.4 Storage ............................................................................................................................ 31
5. Environmental impact of CO2 provision from various sources ............................... 32
5.1 Material, land and water demand ................................................................................ 32
5.1.1 Hard coal power plant ............................................................................................. 32
5.1.2 Natual gas combined cycle power plant ............................................................... 33
5.1.3 Ethanol plant ............................................................................................................. 34
5.1.4 Air capture ................................................................................................................. 34
5.1.5 Summary of results .................................................................................................. 35
5.2 Allocation of GHG emission ......................................................................................... 36
6. Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 38
7. Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 40


Glossary

Abbreviation / Acronym Description
AGR Acid gas removal
bpd Barrel per day
CCS Carbon capture and storage
EOR Enhanced oil recovery
GtL Gas‐to‐liquids
IATA International Air Transport Association
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
MEA Monoethanolamine
MDEA Methyl diethanolamine
NGCC Natural gas combined cycle power plant
PSA Pressure swing absorption
SOLAR‐JET Preceding EU project, laboratory demonstration of solar‐
thermochemical kerosene synthesis
SUN‐to‐LIQUID This project, field validation of solar‐thermochemical synthesis of
liquid hydrocarbon fuels


1. Introduction
1.1 General context of the SUN‐to‐LIQUID project
Deliverable D1.3 “Techno‐economic and environmental analysis of CO2 provision from various
sources” is the first out of four public Deliverable Reports on the SUN‐to‐LIQUID system analysis
activity1. Unlike confidential reports that make up for the majority of the project’s reporting activity
towards the European Commission, public reports are made available by the European
Commision’s Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS)2. In addition all
public reports will be available for download from the SUN‐to‐LIQUID project website.

Figure 1: Schematic depiction of the solar‐thermochemical fuel path. Concentrated sunlight drives
a thermochemical splitting reaction that produces a syngas (H2 and CO) from H2O and CO2. The
syngas is further processed to liquid hydrocarbon fuels via Fischer‐Tropsch synthesis. The process
is regenerative if CO2 is regained from the atmosphere. Adopted from [3].
The primary objective of the SUN‐to‐LIQUID project is the scale‐up, field demonstration and pre‐
commercial validation of the complete process chain to solar hydrocarbon fuels from H2O and CO2.
A schematic depiction of the fuel path is shown in Figure 1. Figure 2 gives an impression of the
pioneering solar fuel plant in Móstoles, Spain [4]. The implementation is a joint effort of the project
partners IMDEA, DLR, ETH Zurich, HyGear3, and Abengoa and comprises:
1) a high‐flux solar concentrating subsystem
2) a solar thermochemical reactor subsystem, and
3) a gas‐to‐liquid conversion subsystem.
The long‐term perspective is to establish a solar fuel supply for demanding transportation sectors,
such as aviation, and to lesser extent long haul road freight or maritime transport, which cannot
easily substitute hydrocarbon fuels by electromobility or hydrogen. The solar synthesis of kerosene
or diesel fuels requires a source of carbon atoms, usually in form of CO2, to generate a CO stream
for a Fischer‐Tropsch type gas‐to‐liquid (GtL) process.

1 Further public reports: D1.6 “Economic analysis and risk assessment” (Jan 2019), D1.7 “Life-cycle analysis,
social benefits and environmental impact analysis” (Apr 2019) , D1.8 “Economic analysis and life-cycle
assessment of MW scale design” (Jul 2019)
2 SUN-to-LIQUID project representation at CORDIS: http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/199438_en.html
SUN-to-LIQUID project website: http://www.sun-to-liquid.eu/
3 Further SUN-to-LIQUID project partners: Bauhaus Luftfahrt (Coodination, System analyses), ARTTIC
(Management)

Figure 2: Picture of the SUN‐to‐LIQUID pre‐commercial solar fuel plant in Móstoles, Spain. The
facility consists of 169 focusing mirrors, the solar‐thermochemical reactors are installed at a 15 m
high tower. A gas‐to‐liquids system will be installed next to the tower. The whole plant was
designed and built within SUN‐to‐LIQUID.
The SUN‐to‐LIQUID project is based on a solar reactor technology, which was developed by ETH
Zurich at laboratory scale within the preceding EU project SOLAR‐JET4. The core process is a two‐
step thermochemical cycle for splitting H2O and CO2 using metal oxide redox materials,
1
1st step, reduction MOox  MOred  O2
2
2nd step, oxidation with H2O MOred  H 2O  MOox  H 2
2nd step, oxidation with CO2 MOred  CO2  MOox  CO .

SUN‐to‐LIQUID utilizes non‐stoichiometric cerium oxide (ceria) which has emerged as an attractive
redox active material due to its high oxygen conductivity and cyclability, while maintaining its
structure and phase. A detailed technical description of the pathway towards solar kerosene is
given in Marxer et al. “Demonstration of the entire production chain to renewable kerosene via
solar‐thermochemical splitting of H2O and CO2” [5]5.
The basic results of the system analysis of the preceding project SOLAR‐JET have been published in
Falter et al. “Climate impact and economic feasibility of solar thermochemical jet fuel production”
[1]. Notably, the system analysis has revealed that the economic and environmental effort for
feedstock provision is dominated by CO2 supply rather than H2O provision, even in the desert.
Furthermore, it was found that the contribution of CO2 provision to the fuel production cost is
moderate6, even in case of CO2 air capture (see Figure 5). However, CO2 provision has a decisive
implication on the climate impact of solar‐thermochemical fuel. The combustion of a solar
hydrocarbon fuel releases essentially the same amount of CO2 as the combustion of a fossil fuel of
similar chemical composition. Thus, any net emission reduction requires a “negative” contribution

4 SOLAR-JET project website: www.solar-jet.aero, Project Reference: FP7-285098
5 see Furler et al. “Solar kerosene from H2O and CO2” [60] for open access.
6 The dominating contribution to the fuel production costs is the investment and operation of the solar
concentrating facility. The main measure to reduce fuel production cost is to increase energy conversion
efficiencies for improved utlilization of a given solar field.

to the concentration of atmospheric CO2, e.g. by a prior extraction of CO2 from air. In this case, a
substantial GHG reduction of over 80% compared to conventional jet fuel7 was found for a scenario
that uses atmospheric CO2 from an air capture process. An alternative scenario case, with
utilization of fossil CO2 captured from a natural gas fired power plant, resulted in higher
greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional jet fuel8. This illustrates that the selection of a
regenerative CO2 source for solar fuel production is required to close the carbon cycle and thereby
ensure the sustainability of the process.
1.2 Current energy related CO2 emissions
The monthly average CO2 concentration at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii9 was 407 ppm in
December 2017 indicating a significant increase with respect to pre‐industrial levels of about 280
ppm. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has collected evidence that most of
this increase is due to man‐made emissions (Fifth Assessment Report, IPCC, Working Group I).
These anthropogenic CO2 emissions are mainly produced in the electricity and heating sector
(Figure 3) with a share of 42% of the total. Transport and industry have shares of 24% and 19%,
while other processes have a combined contribution of 16%. At least a quarter of the total
emissions are therefore from mobile sources and can hardly be used for carbon capture. The other
sectors, especially electricity, heating, and industry can in principle capture their CO2 emissions,
while some processes are better suited than others. Over the past 25 years, the total emissions
from fuel combustion have increased by more than 50% [6], with the relative shares of coal and gas
increasing and that of oil decreasing. This was due to the increasing weight of developing
economies, which are using mainly coal for their energy supply. In developed countries, on the
other hand, the share of coal combustion was reduced in recent years.

Figure 3 Estimated shares of total global anthropogenic GHG emissions (Figure taken from [6])

7 0.49 kgCO2eq/Ljet vs. 3.03 kgCO2eq/Ljet for conventional jet fuel
8 3.67 kgCO2eq/Ljet vs. 3.03 kgCO2eq/Ljet for conventional jet fuel
9 https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

The overall emissions have reached a level of about 34 GtCO2 per year from fuel combustion with a
steep incline beginning after the Second World War (Figure 4). The annual emissions from the
transportation sector reached 7 GtCO2/yr in 2010 [7] with a contribution of aviation of about 740
MtCO2/yr (2017: 850 MtCO2/yr) which corresponds to about 240 Mt/yr of fuel. Assuming a 100%
efficient fuel production process, 7 GtCO2/yr would be required for the production of all
transportation fuels and about 740 MtCO2/yr to cover the jet fuel demand.

GtCO2/year

Figure 4 Development of annual CO2 emissions from fuel combustion (Figure taken from [6]).
Considering the amount of CO2 emitted from the sectors industry, electricity and heat production,
the provision of CO2 for fuel production is not a fundamental problem of supply. On the other
hand, its capture and transport to the plant site may render the fuel production uneconomical or
unsustainable, depending on its source. It is the purpose of this report to identify suitable sources
of CO2 for solar thermochemical fuel production that minimize the penalty on the economic and
environmental performance.

2. CO2 demand for solar fuel production
The long‐term goal of the SUN‐to‐LIQUID project is to replace fossil transportation fuels such as jet
fuel and diesel with solar fuels. The main motivation behind this substitution is a reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions from transportation sectors that cannot easily switch to electromobility
or hydrogen. Table 1 sets a scale for the amount of CO2, which is required to cover the global
demand for jet fuel, diesel and the current crude oil consumption. On the following page, these
values are discussed in more detail. Furthermore, the expected scale of individual solar fuel plants,
which is assumed to be set by the typical scale of the gas‐to‐liquid conversion system, quantifies
the typical CO2 demand at a specific location.

Table 1: Typical scales of annual global CO2 demand for selected substitution targets and
expected CO2 demand of typical solar fuel plants. The adjusted CO2 demand to substitute a
specific product is significantly larger, mainly because of by‐products.
Global substitution target Annual fuel Stoichiometric CO2 Adjusted CO2

demand demand demand
Jet fuel consumption (2017) 270 Mt 850 MtCO2 2.0 GtCO2
Jet fuel consumption (ca. 2030) 425 Mt 1.3 GtCO2 3.2 GtCO2
Current diesel for road freight 840 Mt 2.6 GtCO2 6.1 GtCO2
Current crude oil consumption 4400 Mt 14 GtCO2 Not applicable
Scale of single solar fuel plant Annual syncrude production CO2 demand
1,000 bpd facility 50 kt/yr 0.17 MtCO2
10,000 bpd facility 500 kt/yr 1.7 MtCO2

Stoichiometric demand
The minimum CO2 demand to produce a certain amount of fuel (specific demand) is estimated
using a simplified net reaction

H O CO → CH O ,

where (‐CH2‐) represents a building block of a long chained hydrocarbon molecule (diesel/jet fuel).
This net reaction represent a reversal of the combustion process and is suitable to close the carbon
cycle if CO2 is reclaimed from the atmosphere. Obviously, this recycling of CO2 and H2O into fuel is
endothermic and requires significant energy input; in SUN‐to‐LIQUID this energy is provided in form
of solar heat. The specific CO2 demand is derived from the molecular mass of products (m(CO2) = 44
g mol‐1) and educts (m(‐CH2‐) = 14 g mol‐1), thus about 3.14 kg of CO2 are required to synthesize 1
kg of (‐CH2‐). We denote this minimum amount of CO2 as “stoichiometric demand” as it is derived
from the mass balance of the net reaction. This stoichiometric demand is common to all fuel
pathways that produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels from CO2 feedstock and corresponds to the case of
100% carbon conversion efficiency in Figure 5.
Adjusted demand
The real CO2 demand of a solar fuel facility can be significantly larger than the stoichiometric
demand and critically depends on the specific design choices of the fuel production plant. For the
estimates in Table 1 we assume a specific CO2 demand of about 7.4 kg of CO2 to produce 1 kg jet

fuel10. This adjusted demand exceeds the stoichiometric demand by a factor of 2.4, partially
because of carbon losses along the production chain, but mainly because of the limited selectivity
of the Fischer‐Tropsch synthesis, which is assumed to yield jet fuel or diesel and about the same
amount of by‐product in form of light gaseous hydrocarbons and naphtha. The adjusted demand
mainly reflects economic design criteria and can be reduced by refinery design, e.g. via reforming
of by‐products.

Current jet fuel demand and projection to 2030
The current fuel use of 323 billion litres (2016) is derived from a biannual report on the economic
performance11 of the airline industry issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA),
the same report projects a fuel use of 339 billion litres in 2017. Predicting future fuel use of
aviation is beyond the scope of this deliverable report, for Table 1 we assume a reference scenario
by escalating the 2017 fuel use by an annual growth rate of 3.5%/yr12 to arrive at 530 bn litres
around the year 2030. This growth rate is below the strong growth rate of 5%/yr observed during
the past five years13, but exceeds the long‐term historic average growth in aviation fuel
consumption of about 2.5%14.

Current diesel use for road freight and global oil demand
The synthesis of solar jet fuel is the prime motivation of SUN‐to‐LIQUID; however, the current
market for middle distillate fuels is dominated by diesel for road transportation. Diesel fuels are in
particular important for road freight vehicles, which currently consume around 17 million barrel
per day (mb/d)15 or close to one fifth of the current oil consumption of 4418 Mt/yr [8]. For Table 1,
the same adjusted CO2 demand for jet fuel is assumed for diesel, but not for crude oil, which is a
broad mixture of hydrocarbons, by itself.

Specific fuel demand of a solar synfuel facility
The above discussion of the CO2 demand for global transportation fuel substitution is important to
identify CO2 sources that can sustain large‐scale solar fuel production in the long‐term future
(2030+). During scale‐up, much smaller amounts of CO2 are required for demonstration plants and
early commercial facilities. Here, a sufficient amount of CO2 needs to be reliably available at a
specific location. Both the amount of CO2 and the distance to the source of supply become critical
parameters to limit the logistics costs (see Section 4).
The preliminary system design for the upcoming economic and environmental analyses in SUN‐to‐
LIQUID foresees a variation of plant capacities ranging from 1,000 bpd16 to a 10,000 bpd facility.
The former, smaller plant can benefit from modularity and reduced total investment cost, whereas
the latter, larger plant can benefit from a reduction of specific investment costs via economies of
scale. Assuming the same CO2 demand as in the SOLAR‐JET system analysis [1], this equates to an
annual CO2 demand of 0.17 ktCO2/yr at 1000 bpd, and 1.7 Mt/yr at 10,000 bpd plant capacity.

10 Result from the system analysis of the preceeding project SOLAR-JET [1]: In this analysis 5.6 kg CO2 were
required to produce 1 L of jet fuel, 0.865 L of Naphtha and 0.15 kg of gaseous C1-C4 hydrocarbons.
11 www.iata.org/economics 2017 Mid-year report, ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY
12 This growth rate is derived from a growth rate in revenue passenger kilometers of 4.9% and average fuel
efficiency improvements of 1.4%. Source: ICAO Environmental Report 2016, Aviation and Climate
Change
13 This growth rate is derived by comparing the current fuel use to the 2012 fuel use of 257 bn litres (Source:
IATA, 2014 Mid-year report, ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY)
14 Exponential regression of 1972-2014 data provided by the Internation Energy Agency.
15 The Future of Trucks Implications for energy and the environment, OECD/IEA, 2017
16 1 barrel = 159 L; 1,000 barrel per day corresponds to 45,000 tons per year (capacity at full utilization).


Moderate impact of CO2 provision on fuel production cost
One consequence of the limited selectivity of the Fischer‐Tropsch synthesis towards jet fuel or
diesel is that the impact of CO2 provision on fuel production costs depends on the future pricing of
by‐products17. We avoid this discussion here, instead we evaluate the impact of CO2 provision cost
on crude Fischer‐Tropsch hydrocarbons (syncrude). The CO2 demand for producing 1 L of syncrude
approaches the stoichiometric demand, while fugitive CO2 losses along the production chain are
considered by introducing a carbon conversion efficiency18. Figure 5 plots the impact of CO2
provision costs ranging from zero to 100 €/tCO2 for three values of carbon conversion efficiency. An
increase of about 10 ct/L in fuel production cost corresponds to a difference of about 30‐40 €/tCO2
in CO2 provision cost. Air capture technology is expected to set an upper bound on the future CO2
provision cost at any location. A recent analysis projects operational cost of direct air capture to
$42/tCO2 (35 €/tCO2), which may translate into total CO2 provision costs of about 100 €/tCO2 once
capital costs are factored in and technological maturity is achieved [2]. CO2 provision costs of up to
30 ct/L at 100 €/tCO2 are significant, but still a moderate contribution to the projected production
cost for solar‐thermochemical fuels which are on the order of 2 €/L [1].

Figure 5: Impact of CO2 provision cost on syncrude production cost. The impact on fuel cost is
consistently below 35 ct/L. The carbon conversion efficiency quantifies the fraction of C atoms in
the CO2 feedstock which is converted into syncrude.

17 The estmation of the future value of by-products involves significant uncertainty, but the meachnisms are
clear: Higher value by-products reduce the specific cost impact of CO2 provision for transportation fuel
synthesis, lower value be-products increase the specific provision cost.
18 Important contributions to fugitive emissions of GtL facilities result from the limited carbon efficiency of the
FT process (formation of CO2 from CO) and the frequent practice to combust gaseous hydrocarbons for
combined heat and power [1]. These main leaks can be closed by carbon capture to approach carbon
efficiencies near unity.


3. Analysis of CO2 provision from various sources
CO2 is a common product that can be acquired from established industrial gas providers. Thus, CO2
provision is not a technological barrier for solar fuel plants at research or demonstration scale.
However, the system analysis of the preceding project SOLAR‐JET [1] revealed the importance of
CO2 provision on the future environmental and economic performance of the fuel production
pathway. Furthermore, CO2 is a gaseous commodity, which requires elaborate transportation and
logistics technology. Therefore, location and capacity of potential CO2 sources are relevant aspects
for the analyses of CO2 sources for solar fuel production.
3.1 Direct air capture of CO2
Concentration of CO2 in atmosphere
The current concentration of CO2 in air has reached a concentration of 407 ppm (mole fraction) in
December 2017 and is increasing at a current rate of 2‐3 ppm per year. Further significant
components of dry air are N2 (78%), O2 (21%), Argon (0.9%) and Neon (18 ppm). In addition, air
contains a significant and variable amount of water (humidity). Obviously, CO2 is physically and
chemically different from all other components and can be isolated via various physical or chemical
processes. Still, the question arises if CO2 capture from air for the purpose of fuel synthesis is
economically and environmentally feasible.
Traditional air separation
The cryogenic separation of air into its constituents is industrial practice for N2 and O2 production.
The pre‐purification step of cryogenic air separation (Figure 6) involves a rejection of H2O and CO2
to prevent formation of solids during downstream refrigeration19: ambient air is pressurized and
pre‐cooled, thereby water is condensed; in a next step, moisture is further reduced by activated
alumina; finally a periodically loaded/regenerated molecular sieve adsorbs CO2, residual H2O and
trace gasses. A large air separation unit20 with a capacity of 5000 tO2/day rejects about 14 tCO2/day,
which exceeds the capacity of current CO2 air capture pilot and demonstration projects. To our
knowledge, CO2 from industrial air separation is usually not recovered, presumably because the
offgas stream is impure and CO2 is more economically derived from other sources.

Figure 6: Schematic representation of a pre‐purification unit for cryogenic air separation. Filtered
air is compressed to about 6 bar by a multi‐stage turbo compressor. Pressurized air is cooled with
water in direct contact, soluble impurities are washed out. CO2, water vapor and hydrocarbons
are removed in periodically loaded/regenerated molecular sieve adsorbers. N2, O2, Ar, Ne, are
further processed, a CO2 enriched stream is separated, but usually vented as an undesired by‐
product.

19 http://www.linde-engineering.com/internet.global.lindeengineering.global/de/images/AS.B1EN%201113%20-
%20%26AA_History_.layout20_4353.pdf?v=6.0
20 http://www.linde-engineering.com/ Brochure: Customized air separation plants


Cryogenic air separation plants can afford to separate H2O and CO2 at increased pressure, as the
downstream expansion step also requires increased pressure and the small amount of CO2 does
not significantly contribute to the total mass of air. The presence of CO2 therefore has a limited
impact on the required pump energy per unit air and is more economically separated at increased
pressure. However, once CO2 becomes the main product, very large volumes of “unwanted” N2 and
O2 need to be compressed and the energy penalty per unit CO2 becomes prohibitive. We expect a
specific energy demand for initial compression of about 90 Wh per cubic meter of uncompressed
air21 or about 115 MWh/tCO2. This energy penalty for initial compression is much larger than the
total energy requirement of dedicated air capture plants (see Figure 8), which are consequently
designed to capture CO2 at ambient pressure levels.

Basic design philosophy of CO2 air capture

Figure 7: Basic concept of current air capture designs. An absorber/adsorber accumulates CO2 at
near ambient conditions. Process energy is introduced in a second step to release CO2.

The energy penalty of initial compression forces CO2 air capture plants to operate at near ambient
conditions (Figure 7). Various technologies exist22 to accumulate atmospheric CO2 usually over time
scales of few hours. Most process energy is then invested in a second regeneration step when CO2
is already present in aggregated form, thereby specific energy demand is minimized. A CO2
enriched stream, usually containing significant amounts of H2O23, can be further processed using
existing CO2 purification technologies. One distinct feature of this design concept is a shift in the
quality of energy demand from mechanical energy (in case of initial compression) to heat at
moderate temperatures (for sorbent regeneration). This can significantly improve the economics of
the process, especially when low temperature waste heat is available in sufficient quantity, which is
the case for a thermochemical fuel facility. Another advantage is that the CO2 capture efficiency24 is
not of primary importance and can instead be chosen according to energy efficiency or economic
considerations. On the down side, operation at ambient pressure requires larger reaction volumes
and vacuum conditions to induce a pressure swing.

21 This order of magnitude estimate for the energy penalty of air compression is based on data for air
separation equipment. A typical main air compressor (MAN AR160) with about 1.4 Mio. m3/h effective volume
flow and a booster air compressor (MAN RG63) are driven by a combined shaft power of 125 MW to achieve a
pressure of about 6 bar. Source: http://dieselturbo.man.eu/docs/default-
source/shopwaredocuments/engineered-to-the-maximum.pdf?sfvrsn=0
22 See e.g. Reference [61] for an extended review.
23 We expect that the specific amount of H2O that is captured as by-product of a Climeworks Air Capture Unit
would be sufficient for jet fuel synthesis.
24 Capture efficiency is here defined as the ratio between the captured amount of CO2, and the amount of CO2
in the input stream. Most industrial applications require capture efficiencies close to unity to minimize
CO2 concentration in the output stream.


The Climeworks technology
A scientific description of Climework’s air capture process, a specific implementation of a direct air
capture process, which is close to industrialization, is given in [9]; air is passed through a cellulose
fiber filter, loaded with solid amines, of large specific area at ambient pressure and temperature.
The filter unit is saturated at a time‐scale of few hours, the chamber is then closed and CO2 is
recovered at mild vacuum pressure and temperatures slightly below 100°C. The start‐up company
recently inaugurated a pilot and demonstration plant with a capacity of 900 tCO2/yr in Switzerland.
Furthermore, Climeworks contributes to various research projects on national and EU funding
schemes25, these projects include:
‐ German Federal Ministry of Education and Research: “Kopernikusprojekt Power‐to‐X“
‐ EU H2020: CELBICON (2016 – 2019)
‐ EU H2020: STORE&GO (2016 – 2020)
‐ EU H2020: CarbFix2 (2017 – 2021)
It is expected that more detailed information on the techno‐economic performance of the near‐
commercial air capture systems become publicly available during the course of the SUN‐to‐LIQUID
project. Figure 8 summarizes the data that is accessible to date, the range of estimates originates
from the current and historic versions of the company website and a scientific description of the
process in Reference [9]. This range is used as initial input for the SUN‐to‐LIQUID system analyses.
A recent LCA analysis for a technologically different air capture system [2] raises confidence in the
estimated energy demand given in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Different estimates for the process energy demand of CO2 air capture relative to the
heating value of the final fuel26. The blue bars indicate the range of publicly available
information that was collected for the Climeworks system. The yellow bars indicate a recent
literature estimate assuming a conceptually similar, yet technologically different air capture
process [2].

25 Press Release, Power-to-X: Climeworks participates in three European Projects, Zurich, 08.09.2016
26 Assumtions: Stoichiometric CO2 demand 3.14 kgCO2/kgfuel – Carbon conversion efficiency 90% - Specific
energy density of fuel 12 kWh/kgfuel


While electricity demand is moderate, the demand for low grade waste heat is a significant fraction
of the heating value of the final fuel product. Figure 8 clearly shows that it is not reasonable to
provide the process heat for air capture with fossil fuels or the solar fuel itself. Instead, heat should
be recovered from the solar fuel plant27, or generated by a dedicated low‐concentrating solar
system at moderate additional cost.
The current version of Climeworks air capture plant can be modularly scaled in multiples of 135
kgCO2/day, where six units fit the size of one 40‐foot intermodal shipping container. A first estimate
reveals that the CO2 demand of the baseline plant of the SOLAR‐JET system analysis (890 tCO2/day
for 1000 bpd jet fuel plus 865 bpd naphtha), can be met by about 6600 capture units fitting into
1100 shipping containers. This high number of capture units indicates an excess of modularity.
Future systems with capacities of 890 tCO2/day will likely use larger capture units to leverage
economies of scale, by reducing material and/or specific energy demand. Nevertheless, it is
meaningful to quantify life‐cycle missions (about 20 kgCO2eq/tCO2)28 and material demand (module
weight 2 t at a capacity of 50 tCO2/yr) based on available information for Climeworks air capture
systems29. A comparison of these numbers with the results for the SOLAR‐JET baseline plant
reveals that the life‐cycle emissions to establish the air capture infrastructure corresponds to only
2.3% of the emissions to establish the heliostat field30. A similar comparison shows that the area
footprint of the air capture unit is a small percentage of the area required for the solar
concentration system31 (see Section 5.1.4 for more detail).

Further air capture ventures: Carbon Engineering, Global Thermostat, Infinitree
Further to Climeworks, Carbon Engineering, Global Thermostat, and Infinitree are notable
enterprises that also develop CO2 air capture technology. Similar to the Climeworks process, CO2 is
adsorbed/absorbed at ambient pressure and the energy intensive regeneration process is
accomplished using low‐temperature heat to enable tolerable capture cost.
In summary, a number of start‐up companies are currently developing pilot and demonstration
facilities, and thereby begin with an industrial optimization and technology scale‐up. The Swiss
company Climeworks is at the forefront of CO2 air capture technology and engages in several
research and development projects in the European context. The scale‐up is in line with the
manufacturing readiness level of the SUN‐to‐LIQUID process, and the energy requirement is well
suited to the solar‐thermochemical process.
3.2 CO2 provision from seawater and fresh water
CO2 extraction from water bodies provides another option to access natural carbon cycles.
Extracting CO2 from water bodies is expected to result in similar climate effects as direct air
capture, especially when CO2 is sourced from water bodies that outgas CO2 to the atmosphere,
which is the case for most inland waters [10] and some ocean waters32.
The technological feasibility of CO2 removal from seawater has been demonstrated by the US
military and affiliated research institutions [11],[12]. Eisaman and co‐workers report on CO2

27 The energy loss along the fuel production chain exceeds the heating value of the fuel by a factor of 5-10
(factor 10 at 10% energy efficiency). This leaves plenty of opportunity to recover the required waste heat.
28 Excluding emissions for the provision of process energy. Dominating contribution: Production phase.
29 Data from climeworks presentation, “Capturing CO2 from Air”, Wurzbacher, Workshop: Manufacturing of
Green Fuels from Renewable Energy, Roskilde 14 Apr 2015
30 A heliostat is a sun-tracking mirror. The mirror field is a dominating contribution to the lifee-cycle emissions
of a solar-thermochemical fuel facility.
31 6-modules in a 40-foot container (footprint 30 m2) correspond to 60 heliostats with 100 m2 mirror area each.
32 Oceans currently act as a net CO2 sink, but upwells can outgas carbon dioxide to the atmosphere [62],


extraction from seawater using bipolar membrane electrodialysis, and quantify an electrochemical
energy consumption of 242 kJ/molCO2 (about 1500 kWh/tCO2) [12]. This energy demand is below the
energy content of the fuel product and at par with the lower estimates of the energy demand for
CO2 air capture (see Figure 8), but needs to be provided in form of electricity. Furthermore, CO2
extraction from seawater would require infrastructure to supply solar fuel plants at inland
locations.
Significant amounts of CO2 are also dissolved in freshwater which is usually supersaturated with
respect to the equilibrium with atmospheric CO2 [10]. Raymond and co‐workers estimate global
CO2 evasion rates of 1.8 petagrams of carbon per year from streams and rivers and 0.3 PgC/yr from
lakes and reservoirs [10], which equates to a combined annual CO2 release of about 8 GtCO2/yr
(compare to Table 1Table 1. Thus, very significant amounts of CO2 could in principle be sourced
from inland waters. Technologies for CO2 removal from seawater may be adopted to extract CO2
from freshwater, CO2 may also be released from deep lakes with high CO2 concentration using air
lift pumps33. So far, no or little research was been conducted on the economic and environmental
impact of extracting CO2 from inland waters as a feedstock to fuel synthesis.
3.3 Biogenic sources
The carbon cycle can also be closed by biogenic sources, as the carbon content of biomass was
initially extracted from the atmosphere via the photosynthetic metabolism of the plant. However,
the carbon cycle of biogenic sources is much more complex than for technical CO2 air capture, since
perennial plants and, to larger extent, soils and ecosystems can store significant amounts of carbon
for relevant time‐scales. These subtleties of the carbon cycle are an important aspect in the
environmental analysis of bioenergy production pathways. Furthermore, biogenic CO2 sources are
usually not co‐located with favorable sites for solar fuel production. Therefore, additional costs and
GHG emissions from transport and logistics (see Chapter 4) need to be taken into account. Finally,
biogenic CO2 sources are also limited in regional availability, in the size of single point sources and
in the total amount of CO2 that can potentially be supplied for solar fuel production. On the other
hand, at some locations, biogenic CO2 sources are readily available and the capture cost can be very
low. Therefore, biogenic CO2 sources may be very interesting to improve the business cases of early
solar fuel plants without abandoning the benefits of a closed carbon cycle.
3.3.1 Fermentation
Fermentation processes find widespread application in biotechnology. Here we restrict the
discussion to ethanol and biogas production, as they appear to be most relevant as CO2 sources for
solar fuel production.

33 A rare and curious example for controlled degassing is a project for methane and CO2 extraction from lake
Kiwu in Rwanda, which geologically develops eruptive CO2 concentrations. Source: http://endeavor-
energy.com/case_studies/kivuwatt-power-project-rwanda/


Global Fuel Ethanol Production in 2016
Global
Rest of world
India
Argentina
Thailand
Canada
China
Europe
Brazil
United States
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Ethanol production in billion litres per year

34
Figure 9: Global fuel ethanol production . Ethanol plants are a major source of low‐cost CO2, but
large‐scale availability is currently restricted to the US Corn Belt and Brazil.

The global ethanol production has reached 100 billion litres per year in 201634. Assuming
stoichiometry of alcoholic fermentation35, a theoretical maximum of about 75 MtCO2 may be
sourced from the current global ethanol production, which is heavily concentrated in the USA (58%;
mainly from corn) and Brazil (28%; mainly from sugarcane, see Figure 9). A comparison with Table 1
shows that this theoretical maximum is significantly short of the CO2 demand for a complete
substitution of the current middle distillate production, but well above the expected demand of
single solar fuel plants. Single large ethanol plants, such as the Decatur plant which supplies about
1 MtCO2 per year to a flagship carbon capture and storage project in Illinois [13], are well matched
to the CO2 demand of single solar fuel production plants (estimate: 0.17‐1.7 MtCO2 per year, see
Table 1).
The capture cost of CO2 from ethanol production is very low since the fermentation process
releases a high purity stream of CO2 into the gas phase, while the ethanol product remains in the
liquid phase36. Where existing, ethanol plants usually establish the lowest‐cost source for the
regional CO2 market [14], furthermore, only a small fraction of the CO2 that is released by ethanol
production is currently utilized [14]. Consequently, ethanol plants are available point sources that
offer low‐cost renewable CO2 at sufficient scale for single solar fuel plants. However, the
geographic distance between ethanol plants, which are usually sited in regions with favorable
condition for agriculture and (arid) regions with favorable solar irradiation pose a significant
logistics problem (Chapter 4).
Anaerobic digestion of biomass to produce raw biogas or upgraded bio‐methane is another
potential source of renewable CO2. Unlike ethanol fermentation, which uses sugar or starch from
energy crops in most cases37, anaerobic digestion is suitable to convert a wide variety of organic

34 1 billion = 1000 millions. 26.5 billion gallons correspond to about 100 billion litres or to about 50 Mtoe
(Energy density ethanol 5.87 kWh/L); Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/281606/ethanol-
production-in-selected-countries/
35 Current maximum potential derived from C6H12O6 → 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2 and 2016 fuel enthanol production
of 26.5 billion gallons.
36 Reference [13] describes the CO2 produced in ethanol fermentation as “a high purity CO2 stream (greater
than 99% purity on a moisture free basis), with water content less than 3% by weight.”
37 Sugar and starch is still dominant, but cellulosic Ethanol production is meanwhile a commercially available
technology. Clariant has recently announced to buildt a flagship plant in Romania; Source:


feedstock to produce a raw biogas, which mainly consists of methane and CO2, but also contains
trace gasses such as H2S38. In the majority of existing plants, raw biogas is locally combusted for
energetic use and the CO2 content of the biogas is emitted with the impure flue gas mixture.
In case raw biogas is further upgraded, an additional gas separation step is required for purification
to comply with bio‐methane specifications. The CO2 enriched offgas stream is usually vented, but
several technologies to purify CO2 as a by‐product are commercially available [15]. Due to
impurities, recovery of CO2 from bio‐methane upgrading is more difficult than in case of ethanol
production. In addition, bio‐methane plants tend to be smaller than ethanol plants, thus logistics
are even more challenging (see Chapter 4). On the other hand, it is reasonable to locate biogas
plants at suitable locations for solar fuels production, e.g. to treat the organic fraction of municipal
waste, sewage sludge or to digest agricultural residues [16]. Thus, synergies and business
opportunities for a limited number of solar fuel plants may be sought and found at selected
locations39. However, it is not expected that bio‐methane plants in arid areas can support a CO2
supply at the required scale to substitute transportation fuels.
3.3.2 Further bioenergy sources
Further identified biogenic sources of CO2 are those related to biopower systems, as direct firing of
biomass, co‐firing in coal plants, and pyrolysis. A wide range of biomass sources is available:
agricultural residues (such as straw, prunings, etc), forest biomass (mainly residues from harvesting
operations), energy crops, biowaste streams (food waste, garden waste, wood waste, etc.), and
algae and aquiculture.
Currently, the larger installations producing CO2 from biomass are biomass fired plants in the range
of 1 – 100 MW, which are smaller than those of coal, ranging between 600 – 1000 MW. The direct
CO2 emissions from biomass combustion processes correspond to the amount of atmospheric CO2
captured through the growth of the biomass. From the LCA perspective, biomass combustion and
CCS usually results in net negative emissions; the quantification of how negative they are will
depend on the total lifecycle emissions caused by the supply chain (e.g. transport and logistics), the
energy penalties, and, very importantly, direct and indirect land use changes [17,18].
Generation of power from biomass has a scale limitation based in the resource availability [19]. For
instance, a biomass power plant of 600 MW would require 500 tonnes/h of biomass, which
requires a lorry (30 t) every 3.5 minutes. Therefore, a centralised production of biopower from
cofiring with coal seem a more plausible solution to the logistics challenge of biomass firing.
According to the assumptions of Hetland et al. [19], cofiring biomass with coal in a power plant
equipped with a carbon capture system would reduce the amount of emissions and reduce the
energy penalty from the carbon capture process if compared to pure biomass power systems
equipped with CCS. In general, the efficiency of biomass combustion increases in co‐firing plants, so
the energy penalty from CCS has a smaller effect on the emissions from biomass. In Figure 10, the
balance for a rice straw system for combustion in a biomass‐specific plant (a) and a coal cofiring
system (b) is shown. The CO2 balance in the example does not include the burden from the biomass
cultivation; in this case, if considered a waste, the associated emissions would only correspond to
transport and preprocessing of biomass (e.g. drying), while the main emissions from the cultivation
step would be allocated to the main product (e.g. wood, food, etc.).

www.clariant.com/en/Corporate/News/2017/10/Clariant-to-build-flagship-sunliquid-cellulosic-ethanol-
plant-in-Romania
38 Typical composition (feedstock dependent) [63]: CH4: 60-70%, CO2 30-40%, N2: 0.2%, H2S < 4000 ppm
39 Human agglomeration in arid countries is often accompanied with cultivation of food crops. See e.g. aerial
view of Kern County California for massive co-location of irrigation agriculture and solar power plants.
Several examples for co-location of solar plants and irrigation agriculture are found in Southern Spain,
other potential sites are found along rivers in northern Africa (e.g. Nile downstream to Lake Nasser).


The results from a wider analysis by the European Biofuels Technology Platform showed a lower
potential for biomass co‐firing: by 2050, dedicated combustion of biomass with CCS would allow a
net negative GHG emissions of 100 Mt/yr of CO2. By the year 2050, therefore, the potential of
biomass and CCS would be of ‐300 kg of CO2 per MWh of biomass feedstock available [20].
a)

b)

Figure 10. Biomass combustion CO2 balance in (a) a biomass specific plant, and (b) biomass
cofiring in coal plants
3.4 Capture from industrial processes
3.4.1 Introduction
Around 7,500 large stationary sources are identified in the world (each emitting over 0.1 MtCO2/yr
of CO2), of which 2,000 are coal‐based power plants, 1,700 natural gas‐fed facilities, 1,200 cement
plants, and the rest are heavy industries from different sectors [21]. Figure 11a shows the
distribution of those industrial large CO2 emitters in Europe for the year 2012, as gathered in the
EDGAR database [22]. In total, 37% of the total CO2 emissions in 2012 came from 336 large plants
[22], with emissions over 1 MtCO2/yr, with the geographic distribution shown in Figure 11b.



a)

b)
Figure 11. Large stationary sources of CO2 in Europe: a) all sources; b) sources
over 1 MtCO2/yr. Data from EDGAR database.


The availability of CO2 is not the only driver for feasible carbon capture projects. In fact, the
concentration of CO2 in the gas is determinant to the viability of the process and its potential scale.
The concentrations in industrial sources range from 4‐5% CO2 up to 100%. Table 2 below shows
typical industrial sources of CO2 and the minimum, maximum and average CO2 generation capacity
as reported in the review by Patricio and co‐workers [23].
Table 2. Concentration of CO2 per source and minimum, maximum, and averaged produced
amount per source. All values taken from [23].
Min ‐ Max CO2 Average
Source % CO2
MtCO2/yr MtCO2/yr
Biogas upgrading 99% ‐ <0.1
1
Natural gas firing 7‐10% 0.1 – 35.2 101
Gas turbines 3‐4 %
Oil firing 11‐13%
Coal firing 11%
Waste Incineration 10% 0.2 – 0.5 0.4
Cement kiln and limestone 22‐32% 0.1 – 2 0.5
calcination
Hydrogen and ammonia 30 – 0.1 – 2.5 (6.8)2 0.2
production 100%
Aluminium production 3‐10% 0.1‐0.5 0.3
Iron and steel production 22‐38% 0.1‐11.4 0.3
1 Values for the power generation sector 2 Value for ammonia production in brackets
The influence of the CO2 concentration is key to understand the energy penalty of a carbon capture
process when coupled to an industrial process. Figure 12 shows the minimum required work, i.e.
the change in Gibbs Free energy, at different exhaust temperatures and flue gas molar fractions of
CO2. As observed, when the content of CO2 is low in the flue gas, the change in free energy of the
capture process increases significantly, and, therefore, the energy penalty.

Figure 12. Minimum required work for the separation of CO2 from flue gases at different
compositions [24]



3.4.2 Natural gas upgrading
Natural gas upgrading from wellhead gas consists of four processing steps: condensate removal,
water removal, AGR and separation of natural gas liquids. AGR, the acid gas removal, also called
sweetening, is usually an amine absorption process designed to separate CO2 and H2S with the
Claus process.
Over 95% of wells use the amine absorption process to separate CO2, which produces a
concentrated stream of CO2 (96‐99%) at 100‐120°C and 1 bar. AGR accounts for over 58% of site
emissions of CO2. Since capturing CO2 at natural gas processing or upgrading is relatively low cost,
some sites use this CO2 for EOR (enhanced oil recovery) purposes, estimating a cost of US$ 14 per
tonne of captured CO2, while the cost of avoided CO2 varies from US$ 5 to US$ 70 [25,26].
3.4.3 Hydrogen and ammonia production
In the production of hydrogen and ammonia, natural gas is heated, desulphurised and reformed
with steam, yielding carbon monoxide, CO, and hydrogen, H2. For ammonia production, after the
first reforming step, air is mixed with the gas stream in a second step where unconverted methane
is partially oxidised to CO, H2 and water. For hydrogen production, the carbon monoxide is
converted into CO2 by reaction with water, WGS (water gas shift), usually in two steps at high and
low temperature.
In the case of ammonia, the resulting gas is also shifted converting the remaining CO into CO2.
Then, CO2 is absorbed using amines, which, after rinsing, produces pure CO2. The N2 and H2
produced after the absorption step is then fed into a high pressure reaction look over a catalytic
bed to produce ammonia.
In total, 1.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide can be recovered during the production of 1 tonne of
ammonia with no further carbon capture from the flue gas from heat production [27]. Although the
process can yield different concentrations of CO2 in the range of 30 to 99% of CO2 [23], depending
on the absorbent and the scrubbing method of the absorbent, it can be designed in order to yield
highly pure CO2. An average ammonia plant produces 0.5 MtCO2/yr of CO2; a large plant, producing
around 2 million tonnes of ammonia would be able to produce up to 2 MtCO2/yr of high purity CO2.
3.4.4 Petrochemical industries
One of the main challenges of petrochemical industries is the large number of small sources with a
wide range of carbon dioxide concentrations. Boilers and furnaces account for around 60% of total
emissions, while a high concentration of CO2 is obtained from hydrogen production on‐site (Table
3). In line with ammonia production, petrochemical industries require a large amount of hydrogen
for their own consumption, which is produced from the reforming of hydrocarbons available at the
plant. In the production of hydrogen, a CO2 rich stream is usually produced that can be captured for
storage or use purposes. In a recent paper, an Asian refinery was evaluated as a potential CO2
source in a case study [28].



Table 3. Breakdown of CO2 emissions and concentration from refineries and chemical industries
Fraction of total CO2 CO2 flue concentration,
Source
emissions % (w/w) % (w/w)
Boilers and furnaces 65% 9%
Catalytic Cracking 16% 12%
Flares 3% 8 – 10%
Reforming 2% 20 – 99%
Incineration 1% 3 – 12%
Utilities 13% 3 – 12%
In the assessed case study, the refinery requires 77 kt/yr of hydrogen of high purity, which is
obtained by naphtha steam reforming, followed by a water gas shift reaction and a pressure swing
absorption, PSA. A CO2 absorption stage upstream to PSA would be feasible, since the stream
entering to the PSA has a high concentration in CO2. The use of ADIP‐X (based in methyl
diethanolamine and pimerzine) has an efficiency of 95% of total CO2 emissions, while PSA efficiency
for hydrogen separation is around 89%. Given these conditions, the levelised cost of hydrogen
would change from EUR 5 per GJ of H2 to EUR 7.8, while the cost of captured CO2 that would
compensate for the increase of hydrogen cost would be EUR 47 per tonne. In terms of
environmental impact, the normal naphtha reforming process would emit around 890 kt per
annum, while the reforming plus CCS process would emit around 271 kt of CO2per annum, and
store 552 kt. Naphtha fuel for the process is around 70 kt per annum while it is 60 kt for the
process with CCS, which however increases the electricity consumption by a factor of 6; the total
primary energy used would increase from 125 to 613 GWh when CO2 is captured.
3.4.5 Power plants
In fossil power plants, a fossil fuel, i.e. coal, natural gas or oil, is combusted to produce heat. The
exothermic oxidation of carbon and hydrogen releases energy that is used to evaporate water. The
resulting steam is then relaxed in a turbine, which generates electrical energy.
3.4.5.1 Coal power plants
The combustion of coal is one of the oldest forms of electrical energy generation. As coal is
abundant in many regions of the earth, the existing resources are estimated to last centuries and
thus longer than natural gas or crude oil. Recently, the use of coal has decreased in developed
economies, while it has grown significantly in China, for example. There are different options to
capture CO2 from a gas stream, such as physical adsorption, chemical absorption, physical
absorption, membrane technology, and cryogenic separation. In the following, chemical absorption
is described in more detail, as it is a commonly discussed technology for the capture of CO2 from
fossil power plants and is used in several demonstration projects.
3.4.5.2 Post‐combustion capture
The generation of electrical energy in a coal power plant is based on the rankine cycle. Coal is
combusted producing heat and CO2 after the following equation.

C O → CO (3.1)


The oxidation is exothermic at 393.51 kJ mol‐1. As there are no hydrogen atoms in the coal, which
would provide more combustion energy, coal is the most carbon intensive fossil energy conversion
technology per amount of electrical energy produced. Water is evaporated by the heat of the
combustion process and relaxed in a steam turbine. A generator then converts the mechanical
energy of the turbine into electrical energy. The steam is then condensed and returned to the
boiler. The most efficient power plants have an energy conversion efficiency of over 45% .
CO2 is released from the combustion reaction in the furnace and exits the chimney with a
concentration of 12‐14% [13].
A promising technology for the capture of CO2 from a gas stream is chemical absorption, in which
the CO2 binds to a liquid chemical solvent such as Monoethanolamine (MEA). Before, impurities
such as NOx, SOx, particulates, HCl, metals, and others have to be removed from the gas stream to
prevent solvent degradation by producing oxidised amine fragments, NH3, formate, acetate and
peroxides [29]. In [29], a pulverized coal power plant with CO2 post‐combustion capture is shown.
After the boiler, selective catalytic reduction reduces the amount of NOx by reaction with NH3, as is
nowadays commonly done in modern diesel cars. An electrostatic precipitator removes particles
from the gas stream, and the subsequent desulphurization removes sulphur. After these cleaning
processes, CO2 is contacted with an amine solution and partly removed from the gas stream, which
can be described by the following equations. For primary and secondary amines, the carbamate ion
RNHCOO‐ is formed, requiring two mols of amines for the removal of one mol of CO2.
CO 2RNH ⇌ RNHCOO RNH (3.2)
Using tertiary amines, one mol of CO2 can be bound to one mol of amine, however, at a much
slower reaction rate [29].
CO R N H O ⇌ HCO R NH (3.3)
In the absorber, the CO2 reacts with amines and the sorbent is recovered in the stripper under the
application of heat in the temperature range 100‐140°C at slightly elevated pressures. Energy is
required for bringing the solution to the boiling point, breaking the chemical bonds of CO2 and
solvent, and for the generation of water vapour for the establishment of an operating CO2 pressure
[29].
3.4.6 Iron and steel production
Europe produces 11% of the total steel in the world, while the sector accounts for 4‐5% of the total
anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and for 30% of the total industrial emissions.
Two main sizes of iron and steelmaking plants exist [30]. There are around 200 integrated plants in
the world with emissions over 3 MtCO2/yr of CO2, and numerous smaller mills, mini‐mills with
emissions under 0.2 MtCO2/yr. The average intensity of CO2 production is 1.9 tons of CO2‐
equivalents per ton of steel [31]. Large amounts of CO2 are produced when iron ore, sintered iron
ore, limestone flux and coke enter into the blast furnace and coke reacts with hot air, producing
carbon monoxide, CO, which reduces the iron ore and produces CO2. In a typical blast furnace,
around 770 kg of coking coal are required to produce 1 tonne of steel.
In a typical integrated steel mill, the largest single point source on site will be the blast furnace,
which is responsible for a third of plant emissions; however, process heaters, which are disperse
and produce a lower CO2 concentration flue, constitute 57.7% of flue gases from an steelmaking
plant [25]. In any case, the blast furnace is an example of unavoidable CO2 emissions, since these
are produced not only because of combustion, but as a part of the chemical process of ironmaking.
A recent study showed that emissions in a typical steel mill could be reduced from around 2 tonnes
per tonne of steel down to 565 kg per tonne in an optimistic scenario, where all the sources are
accounted and using calcium looping; they can be reduced to 833 kg per tonne of steel if MDEA is


used and focused on main emitters within the mill [32]. According to a recent review on industrial
CO2 sources, capture costs in still mills range from EUR 30 to 120 per tonne of captured CO2 [30],
but the Eurofer roadmap indicates that a 60 per cent reduction is the maximum that could be
achieved in the deployment of CCS to blast furnaces; further reductions will depend on the
decarbonisation of the electricity sector and the deployment of biomass sources [33].
3.4.7 Cement production
Cement production is another good example of unavoidable GHG emissions. The calcination of
CaCO3 into CaO and CO2 produces at least 60% of the total emissions; the produced free lime is
essential for the production of cement clinkers. So, any alternative to the production of CO2 in a
cement plant requires basically a new product with reduced footprint, which is still some way off
[34]. The rest of emissions, 40%, comes from the fuel burning process in the kiln, where
temperatures up to 1450°C are required to produce the clinker mineral phases. An average cement
plant consumes around 3780 MJ of energy per tonne of clinker, which corresponds to about 2500
MJ per tonne of final cement.
In total, CO2 from cement plants account for 5% of the total GHG emissions around the world. A
typical cement plant produces 1 Mt of cement and around 1 Mtonne of CO2‐equivalents per year.
Since the raw meal and the fuel are mixed in the kiln, the concentration of CO2 in the exhaust tends
to be much higher than usual; according to several sources, a CO2 concentration of 22% (w/w) is
typical in the exhaust gas of a conventional kiln producing Portland cement clinker [35,36] The
Nocem Brevik Plant produces 1.2 million tonnes of cement and emits around 925 million tonnes of
CO2 at a concentration of around 22% [36]. A process designed for CO2 absorption would use the
extra 31 MW of heat produced by the kiln to capture around 42% of the carbon dioxide produced
at the stack. The total calculated cost, including compression and transport, is around 100 – 150
EUR per tonne of CO2, depending on the amine used, where the contribution of carbon dioxide
capture process is around EUR 50 per tonne. However, this cost is probably underestimated due to
the use of waste heat from cement, which is usually not available in many cement kilns since the
exhaust is frequently used to preheat and dry the raw meal in a cyclones series. Figure 13 and
Figure 14 shows the mass and energy balances for the CO2 capture process in the Nocem Brevik
plant.

Figure 13. Cement kiln carbon capture process for the Nocem Brevik plant in Norway.


Figure 14. Mass and energy balance of the CO2 capture process of the Nocem Brevik Plant
3.4.8 Aluminum production
Aluminium is a light‐weight metal which is produced from aluminum oxide. Current technology use
the Hall‐Héroult method, where alumina is dissolved in molten cryolite and reacts with graphite at
a temperature between 950 – 1000°C. Since the carbon acts as an anode, it is continuously
depleted and replaced. The process equation, therefore, would actually produce CO2 as part of the
involved reactions and not only as a matter of energy production: 2Al2O3 + C +electricity  4Al +
3CO2. Large amounts of air are supplied to the cell in order to limit the temperature; this limits the
concentration of CO2 to 1%, although 10% is achievable with cell redesign [37]. Post‐combustion
capture processes, applied to aluminium production exhaust at 4% CO2, would have an average
efficiency of 85% and cost around EUR 60 to 100 per tonne of captured CO2 [38]. The energy
penalty would range from 3 to 7 MJ per kg of CO2 [39]. In any case, major retrofittings are required
in the aluminium producing cells to increase the concentration of CO2 up to 10%.
3.5 CO2 from natural wells
Stable geological CO2 reservoirs occur naturally and can be accessed by drilling technology. Clearly,
natural wells are not suitable for renewable fuel synthesis, since CO2 from stable formations is
released during fuel combustion and accumulates in the atmosphere40. Thus, natural wells serve as
a hypothetical case that unambiguously shows that solar fuels can have very high GHG emissions if
the CO2 feedstock does not close the carbon cycle.
Natural wells are also interesting from a technological perspective, since their current use as large‐
scale CO2 source for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), requires large‐scale CO2 transportation via
pipeline networks to span the distance between favourable CO2 reservoirs and recoverable oil
bearing formations. According to [14] natural wells provide 22% (about 3.1 MtCO2/yr) of the US
merchant supply of CO2, but the direct utilization for EOR takes place at much larger scale. The
production capacity of single natural wells for EOR exceed the total production capacity of US
merchant CO241. This very large CO2 demand for EOR also justifies the investment in massive CO2

40 A hypotheritcal solar fuel utilizing CO2 from geological reservoirs would cause higher life-cycle CO2
emissions than a conventional crude oil-based fuel because of almost identical emissions during fuel
combustion, but slightly higher life-cycle emissions from the more elaborate fuel production process. This
example is trivial, but clearly shows that that the ignorance of the origin of CO2 for renewable fuel
synthesis can produce very wrong results.
41 e.g. McElmo Dome 1.1 billion cubic feet per day corrensponds to about 22.5 MtCO2/yr, source:
https://www.kindermorgan.com/pages/business/co2/supply/supply_mcelmo.aspx


pipeline infrastructure, such as the Cortez Pipeline of Kinder Morgan, which connects large natural
wells in Colorado with a CO2 pipeline hub in Denver City, Texas, over a distance of about 800 km
and with a capacity of about 30 MtCO2/yr42. This scale is significantly larger than the CO2 demand of
single solar fuel plants (about 1.7 MtCO2/yr for 10.000 bpd plant, see Chapter 2). Consequently, the
example of EOR shows that CO2 pipeline networks are proven technology which is available at
relatively low specific cost at large capacities (compare to Figure 16).
The following chapter will further elaborate on the sensitivity of CO2 transport and logistics on
distances and capacities.

3.6 Suitability of CO2 from various sources for process
Pure CO2 and H2O are required for solar thermochemical syngas production, which is then
converted into liquid hydrocarbon fuels. In principle, all aforementioned CO2 sources are
technically suitable for the process of solar fuel production. As, however, the most promising
locations for solar thermochemistry are in the arid and sunny regions of the earth, such as
Northern Africa, Australia, Chile, or the South‐West of the United States of America, not all of the
discussed sources are equally suitable in terms of local availability.
In particular, bionic sources may not be available in sufficient quantities, as biomass supply in arid
locations of high solar radiation is usually limited. In contrast, the supply of CO2 from industrial
sources, such as fossil‐fired power plants or petrochemical industries, is in principle possible.
However, the availability of such sources is typically limited to industrial hubs or urban regions,
rendering the supply of solar thermochemical production plants in more remote desert areas
challenging.
In general, a source has to be found that can supply CO2 in the required quantity, without
transportation over excessively large distances to avoid the associated cost. In addition to the cost
of transport, the choice of the CO2 source entails other economic and particularly environmental
impacts that need to be considered, as discussed in more detail in the following sections.

42 Cortez Pipeline, approximately 500 miles, capacity 1.5 billion cubic feet of CO2 per day, source:
https://www.kindermorgan.com/pages/business/co2/pipelines/transport_cortez.aspx


4. CO2 transport and logistics
The efficient transport of gases requires the reduction of their volume, which is done by an
increase of pressure and by a decrease of temperature. For CO2, depending on the chosen pressure
and temperature, the gas will change its state from gaseous to liquid or solid. The smallest volume
is reached in its liquid state which is therefore commonly chosen for transport. A further increase
of pressure will not lead to a significant additional reduction of the volume but requires more
energy. For safety reasons, to ensure that the gas remains in its liquid state, a higher pressure than
the minimum of 57 bar at 20 °C is chosen, especially to compensate pressure losses along a
pipeline or temperature increases in a pressure tank. If CO2 is captured in an industrial process, it
has to be transported from the capture site to the fuel production plant. Depending on the location
of the capture site, transport can be implemented by railway, truck, on‐shore and off‐shore
pipeline, or by ship. The preferred transport mode depends on the amount of CO2 to be
transported and the location of the source and of its use. Towards large amounts of CO2, the use of
pipelines becomes interesting, as the specific costs are lowest, while a location at the sea facilitates
transport by ship. In the following, the different modes of transport are discussed.
For the solar fuel production facility, carbon dioxide capture on site is foreseen for the future due
to its advantages with respect to environmental feasibility and due to the fact that the gas does not
have to be transported over possibly large distances.
4.1 Road transport
CO2 can be transported in pressurized cylinders at a unit size of e.g. 34 kg of CO2 in a cylinder
weighing 99 kg overall for very small applications such as laboratory experiments, for beverage
treatment, or for aquariums. The size and operation from a storage bottle that can be opened and
closed by hand is ideally suited for intermittent use. For larger applications, a dedicated tanker
truck for the refrigerated transport at ‐23 °C and at a pressure of 17 bar can be used. The reduced
temperature allows using larger tanks due to the reduced vapour pressure [40]. The capacity of an
example tank is 10.6 t at an empty weight of 4.5 t, which gives a product weight ratio of about 70%
[41]. The transport by truck is the preferred option for land transport when a pipeline
infrastructure, which requires a large investment, is not available.
Transport by truck is feasible for small‐scale applications, is however expected to be excessively
expensive for larger amounts of gas. Assuming transport costs of 10 €/(tCO2 100 km) and a relative
share of CO2 of the overall storage vessel weight of 70%, the transport costs rise to
14 €/(tCO2 100 km). For the baseline case of 1000 bpd of jet fuel and 865 bpd of naphtha in [1],
5.6 kg of CO2 are required for the production of one functional unit (1 L jet fuel and 0.87 L
naphtha), whereas the transport distance is assumed to be 500 km. CO2 transport by truck then
costs 0.22 € per liter of jet fuel, or about 10% of the estimated production costs. Under the
assumptions made for truck transport, the associated costs are significant.
For a truck with a maximum weight of 40 tons, the freight may have a weight of about 27 tons,
whereas the remaining 13 tons are for the empty weight of the vehicle. Assuming a relative weight
of 70% of product in the filled storage vessel, only about half of the total vehicle weight is therefore
CO2. Compared to pipeline transport, this is a disadvantage. Since no infrastructure is required
except roads, however, this transport mode has a very low implementation threshold and can
readily be used for smaller applications.
4.2 Ship transport
Today, already large quantities of gas are transported by ship, namely liquefied natural gas (LNG)
and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). LNG is usually carried in its liquid state by cooling it to a


temperature of ‐162 °C. LPG, on the other hand, is also carried in its liquid form, whereas on small
ships, pressure tanks are used, on large ships refrigeration, and on intermediate sizes a
combination of both. Transport of CO2 by ship has similarities to liquefied natural gas transport and
can operate with pressure tanks or with liquefaction of the gas. Pressure tanks are preferred for
small amounts of gas, while the semi‐refrigerated type is chosen by ship designers with a design
point of the gas of ‐54°C at 6 bar or ‐50°C at 7 bar [42]. At these temperatures and pressures, the
CO2 is in its liquid phase, slightly above the saturation line. A further increase of pressure or a
decrease of temperature does not lead to a significantly higher density but requires a higher input
of energy. A minimum pressure of about 5 bar is required to liquefy the CO2, while at lower
pressures, the gas crosses the sublimation line between its gaseous and solid state. The conditions
of semi‐refrigerated transport are therefore similar to those of LPG shipment, whereas small
amounts of CO2 have been carried on ships for several years, mainly for industrial purposes [43] in
lot sizes of about 1000 m3. For large‐scale transport, a unit size of 10,000 m3 per tank with a total
capacity of several of these tanks per ship is envisioned [44]. While currently not implemented,
there are already a number of six ships of IM Skaugen in Norway which are approved for the
carriage of CO2, whereas the number of ships used for the transport of hydrocarbon gases are more
than 300 [43].
Additionally, the transport of the CO2 from the source to the harbour has to be organized, by road,
rail, or pipeline. At the harbour, since the CO2 source is usually continuous and the ship movement
is intermittent, a buffer tank has to be installed and a liquefaction unit is required. Compared to
transport in a pipeline, a break‐even distance, beyond which ship transport becomes cheaper, is
estimated to be at about 1000 km [42], depending on the prevalent conditions and assumptions
made (see Figure 15).
4.3 Pipeline transport
Transport in a pipeline is already implemented in several pilot projects for the delivery of CO2 for
enhanced oil recovery in the US. In principle, CO2 can be transported in its gaseous phase in a low‐
pressure pipeline, or in its liquid phase in either a high‐pressure pipeline or a refrigerated one,
whereas the lowest cost option is the high‐pressure pipeline [42].
To prevent corrosion, a maximum hydrogen sulfide content is defined in the CO2 stream, next to
other requirements such as water content or temperature. The design of on‐land pipelines has to
account for environmental and social factors, e.g. the crossing of urban areas, rivers and roads.
Also safety issues have to be taken into consideration, for example the prevention of gas
accumulation in an inhabitated region. Underwater pipelines have to be secured against damage
from fishing equipment or ship traffic and may be entrenched. Pipelines have to be regularly
inspected, repaired and maintained, whereas small machines, so‐called “pigs” can be used to do an
automated check of the pipeline interior, collecting data about internal and external corrosion,
deformation, and the precise position of the line [42].
Costs of CO2 transport by ship and pipeline are discussed in [42] and shown in Figure 15 for a
capacity of 6 Mt per year. Towards small distances, pipeline transport is cheaper than by ship,
where the break‐even distance is at about 1000 km for offshore pipelines and about 1600 km for
onshore pipelines. The results depend on the assumptions made about the systems, e.g. the
transport capacity. A solar fuel production facility is likely to be situated in a desert region far from
the next harbour. It is therefore likely that transport by ship alone may not be able to cover the
distance from the CO2 source to the solar fuel facility. If a CO2 source can be found which is less
than about 1600 km away an onshore pipeline is likely to be the least costly transport option. In
case that a combination of transport modes is required, the calculation of the costs needs to
include the specific combination of parameters.



Figure 15: Transport costs of 6 Mt per year of CO2 by offshore pipeline, onshore pipeline, and ship.
This amount corresponds to the production of 18500 bpd of jet fuel and 16000 bpd of naphtha.
Figure taken from [42].
Furthermore, the transport costs depend on the mass flow of CO2 (Figure 16). For larger amounts,
the specific costs per ton of CO2 decrease considerably. Towards small mass flows of below 5 Mt
per year, the specific costs are significantly increased. Due to the characteristic economics, it is of
high importance to choose the most suitable transport mode for CO2 in order to reduce overall
costs. While for small amounts of CO2 rail or truck transport may be suited best, for larger amounts,
transport by ship or pipeline is more favourable. For a baseline plant size of 1000 bpd of jet fuel
and 865 bpd of naphtha, transport costs by pipeline are estimated to be in the region of 10
€/(tCO2 100 km).



Figure 16 Specific CO2 pipeline transport costs per ton and 250 km as a function of mass flow rate.
The dashed lines indicate high range costs and solid lines low rage costs. Figure taken from [42].

4.4 Storage
As CO2 is gaseous at atmospheric pressure and temperature, it has to be compressed to reduce its
volume and thus to enable efficient storage. The smallest volume is reached in its liquid state which
can be reached e.g. by compression to 57 bar at normal temperature or by compression and
cooling to the triple point at ‐57 °C and 5.1 bar. Other temperature and pressure combinations are
possible, depending on the pressure rating of the storage vessel and the process conditions.
Liquefied CO2 can then be transported from the source or the liquefaction facility to the storage
site, which is in the present case the solar thermochemical fuel production plant. It is then stored in
a tank, which is insulated towards the surroundings. In an efficient implementation, the storage
tank has an inner vessel containing the liquid CO2, and an outer vessel, whereas in between a
vacuum is established to reduce heat transfer from the surroundings. This heat transfer leads to
the evaporation of liquid CO2, increasing the pressure in the vessel. To keep the pressure within
safe limits, boil‐off gas has to be removed from the storage, which can be re‐liquefied.43
Possible storage sizes range up to several hundred tons, e.g. 100 tons in a vessel of outer
dimensions of 15 m in height and 3.6 m in diameter 44. The working conditions for bulk CO2 storage
are a pressure of slightly above 20 bar at a temperature of about ‐18 °C. As the pressure in the
transportation tank may be lower than in the storage tank, a recompression unit is required at the
storage site.

43 http://hub.globalccsinstitute.com/publications/co2-liquid-logistics-shipping-concept-llsc-overall-supply-chain-
optimization/53-co2
44http://www.ascoco2.com/fileadmin/PDF_Download/PDF_Produkte/PDF_CO2_und_Trockeneis_Zubehoer/C
O2_Lagerung/en/Vacuum_Insulated_CO2_Storage_Tanks.pdf


5. Environmental impact of CO2 provision from various
sources
The solar thermochemical fuel production pathway uses concentrated sunlight to convert water
and carbon dioxide into syngas, which is further synthesized to liquid hydrocarbons. For water, an
easily accessible source may be used in the form of seawater, which can be desalinated with
established and mature processes at affordable cost. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, is
commonly produced in the energy sector and in industrial processes such as in fossil power plants,
ethanol plants, or during cement production. These processes are themselves associated with the
consumption of energy, materials, land and water. Provided that the carbon dioxide is used from
one of these sources, these consumptions have to be allocated in part to the solar thermochemical
fuel pathway. In the following, this allocation is described for materials, land, water and carbon
dioxide emissions.
5.1 Material, land and water demand
It is assumed here that the processes of CO2 supply and of solar thermochemical fuel production
are independent from each other, whereas only CO2 is transferred over the interface but the
processes are not further integrated. This simplification facilitates the analysis of material, land and
water demand of the CO2 supply and allows giving an overview of different sources. System
integration entails the resizing of the plant components, e.g. the CSP plant for electricity provision
at the solar thermochemical plant could be reduced in size if electricity from the CO2 source such as
a power plant is available or waste heat could be used for CO2 capture from air. Nevertheless, a
realistic implementation of solar fuel production should consider the integration of the CO2 source
into the system to take advantage of potential benefits.
Using this assumption, the material, land and water demands for different CO2 sources are derived
by the following approach. For each of the sources of CO2, the specific demand for material, land
and water are derived per unit of product, e.g. electricity from a coal power plant. For all processes,
except for direct air capture of CO2, CO2 is a by‐product or waste stream from a primary process
such as the production of ethanol or the generation of electricity. To account for the environmental
burdens of the primary process, an allocation between the primary product and the produced CO2
is performed based on economic value. The economic value of electricity is defined to be the
production cost from the primary process and that of CO2 is the cost of its capture. The material,
land and water demand from the source of CO2 are then divided between the primary product and
the CO2. An allocation based on economic value is chosen because CO2 does not have an energy
content, which could be used for an energy‐based allocation. The specific demand per kg CO2 is
then multiplied with the required amount for solar fuel production to derive the total demand of
material, land and water for the CO2 from the chosen source, i.e. a coal power plant, a natural gas
combined cycle power plant, an ethanol plant, and air capture.
5.1.1 Hard coal power plant
A coal power plant combusts hard or brown coal to evaporate water and turns the thermal energy
into electrical energy with a turbine. We analyse a hard coal power plant here due to the higher
efficiency compared to a plant based on brown coal. The following parameters of the plant are
based on information in [42]. A reference power plant is defined without capture with a net output
of 754 MW of electricity at a capacity factor of 0.85, an efficiency of 43.7% and a specific CO2
emission factor of 0.747 tCO2/MWh. With the capture unit, the plant output is reduced to 676 MW
at a reduced efficiency of 35.4%. 90% of the CO2 produced during combustion is assumed to be
captured, enhancing the emission factor to 0.092 tCO2/MWh. 4.2 MtCO2 per year are then captured


from the plant and 0.5 MtCO2 emitted to the atmosphere due to the incomplete capture process.
The estimated cost of electricity production is 48.0 €/MWh for the plant without capture and 70.7
€/MWh with capture. The cost of CO2 capture of 26.9 €/tCO2 is then derived by the difference in
electricity costs per ton of CO2 captured.
The economic value of the electricity produced is then the amount of electricity produced
multiplied by its specific production cost (for the reference plant without capture): 8760 h a‐1
0.85 676 MW 48.0 €/MWh = 2.42 108 €/yr. The specific cost for the plant without capture is
used here because the difference in costs between the plant with capture and the one without is
used to calculate the specific costs of CO2 capture. Electricity is therefore assumed to have the
same production costs as in the reference case. The economic value of the captured CO2 is then
4.2 MtCO2/yr 26.9 €/t = 1.12 108 €/yr. The relative share of CO2 in the economic value of
electricity and CO2 combined is therefore 32%, i.e. of the material, land and water used to run the
coal power plant, 32% are allocated to the CO2 which is then used to produce solar fuels.

The land requirement for open‐cast mining of coal in Germany is 60 m2 MWh‐1 yr‐1 [45]. The area
requirement is then 60 m2 MWh‐1 yr‐1 5033496 MWh yr‐1 = 3.02 108 m2. Of this area, 32% are
assigned to the captured CO2, which then gives 0.023 m2 kg‐1 CO2 yr‐1.
The material demand for a coal power plant is taken from the EcoInvent database [46] used in the
software GaBi [47] and multiplied with the allocation factor for CO2, whereas only the most
important contributions above 0.01 kg or MJ are indicated. The contributions are 0.22 kg of hard
coal, 0.03 MJ of energy and 0.01 kg of gravel, each per kg of CO2 captured. All other contributions
are smaller.
The water demand for a coal power plant with carbon capture and storage is estimated to be
3331 L kWh‐1 [48]. The water consumption per kg of CO2 captured is then the specific water
consumption multiplied by the amount of electricity produced and the allocation factor for CO2 and
is 1.28 L kg‐1 CO2.

5.1.2 Natual gas combined cycle power plant
A natural gas power plant with a combined cycle with a net output of 776 MW of electricity at an
efficiency of 55.6% and emissions of 0.379 t CO2 per MWh is used as a reference [42]. When the
capture unit is installed, the capacity is reduced to 692 MW and the efficiency to 49.6% at a capture
rate of 90%. The emission rate is 0.063 t CO2 MWh‐1 at a totally captured amount of 1.8 Mt yr‐1.
The electricity generation cost is estimated to be 35.1 € MWh‐1 without capture and 48.3 € MWh‐1
with capture, resulting in a capture cost of 37.0 € t‐1 CO2.
The economic value of the electricity produced is then 692 MW × 0.85 × 8760 h yr‐1 × 35.1 € MWh‐1
= 1.81 × 108 € yr‐1 and that of CO2 captured 1.8 Mt yr‐1 × 37.0 € t‐1 = 6.83 × 107 € yr‐1. The resulting
share for CO2 captured from the natural gas power plant is 27%, i.e. 27% of the material, land and
water used for the power plant is allocated to the captured CO2.
The land requirement for a natural gas combined cycle power plant has been determined in [49] to
be 0.62 m2 MWh‐1 or 18.6 m2 MWh‐1 yr‐1 at an assumed life time of the plant of 30 years. The total
land requirement is then 9.58 × 107 m2 and the specific land requirement 0.014 m2 kg‐1 CO2 yr‐1.
The material requirement for a natural gas combined cycle power plant is taken from the EcoInvent
database [46] in the GaBi software [47], whereas only the major contributions are shown here. The
material requirements are 0.16 kg natural gas, and 0.02 MJ of energy each per kg of CO2.
The water requirement is 1438 L kWh‐1 [48], which gives a total water consumption of
7.41 × 109 L yr‐1 or a specific water consumption of 1.10 L kg‐1 CO2.



5.1.3 Ethanol plant
Ethanol is produced by fermentation of biomass, which converts glucose into ethanol, CO2 and
heat. One mol of CO2 is produced for every mol of ethanol or 0.75 kg CO2 per liter. For a common
productivity of 4734 liter of ethanol per hectar and year from maize [50], 3483 kg of CO2 ha‐1 yr‐1
are produced. The economic value of the produced ethanol, assuming a price of 0.4 € L‐1 (1.5 $ gal‐
145
), is 1664 € ha‐1 yr‐1. The value of the produced CO2 is 39 € ha‐1 yr‐1 if capture costs of 12.7 $ t‐1
are assumed [51]. The share of the total economic value is therefore 2% for CO2. The required area
per kg CO2 is then 0.066 m2 kg‐1 CO2 yr‐1.
The water demand for ethanol production is estimated to be in the range of 1200‐7000 L L‐1 [52].
The total water demand per hectar is then 5.68 × 106 ‐ 3.31 × 107 L ha‐1 yr‐1. Using the allocation
factor for CO2 derived above, the specific water demand per kg is then 5.68 × 106 ‐ 3.31 × 107 L ha‐1
yr‐1 × 2% / 3483 kg CO2 ha‐1 yr‐1 = 37.6‐219.2 L‐1 kg CO2.
The material requirement for ethanol production from maize is taken from the EcoInvent database
[46] in the GaBi software [47], whereas only the major contributions are shown here. The global
average value for ethanol production is used from the database, which assumes the use of grid
electricity, resulting in the use of 0.37 kg of hard coal, of 0.11 kg of brown coal, of 0.28 m3 of
natural gas and of 0.13 kg of crude oil per liter of ethanol. Furthermore, 0.26 kg of gravel, 0.14 kg of
calcite, 0.04 kg of iron, 0.03 kg of silvite, 0.02 kg of sodium chloride, 0.02 kg of carbon, 0.02 kg of
clay are used per liter of ethanol.

5.1.4 Air capture
Several technical solutions exist for the capture of CO2 from the atmosphere such as chemical
absorption and adsorption, physical adsorption, or cryogenic separation. A promising pathway is
followed by the company Climeworks in Switzerland, which uses amine‐functionalized solid
structures to chemically adsorb CO2 to the surface at ambient pressure and temperature. Low‐
temperature heat and electricity is used to desorb the CO2 from the structure. Only little
information is available regarding the material use and the water intensity of the production
process due to the fact that the technology has not been fully commercialized yet on a large scale.
Nevertheless, a preliminary life cycle analysis exists and the demand for land and water is
estimated from the publicly available data. As the capture of CO2 from the atmosphere has only
one product, an allocation between different by‐products does not have to be performed.
In [53], results from a life cycle analysis are shown by Climeworks for their air capture process,
assuming heat supply from waste heat for the desorption of CO2, which is not associated with any
emissions. Electrical energy is provided from a renewable source (it should be noted that grid
electricity was used for the ethanol plant above). The positive life cycle emissions of CO2 captured
from the atmosphere are then about 0.02 kgCO2/kgCO2, where about 80% are due to the
construction of the plant facility.
The land requirement is estimated from the information of commercially available modules [54]. A
unit has a size of 50 tons per year, whereas six of these units fit into one standard 40 foot container
of the area 12.0 m × 2.3 m. The required ground area per unit is then 4.7 m2, or 9.4 × 10‐5 m2 kg‐1
CO2 yr‐1.
The water requirement is estimated from the energy consumption of the process of 1500 kWh of
heat and of 200 kWh of electricity per ton of CO2, where the necessary information to include the
requirement due to the materials used is not available at present. Heat is assumed to be supplied
by waste heat from the fuel production plant located next to the air capture unit, which is not

45 https://www.agrimarketing.com/ss.php?id=107410


associated with a water demand here, and the electricity is assumed to be generated in a CSP plant
with a specific on‐site water consumption of 0.34 L kWhel‐1. The water demand for the capture of
one kilogram of CO2 from the atmosphere is then 0.068 L kg‐1 CO2.
5.1.5 Summary of results
The results are summarized in the following figures.

Land requirement
0.07
0.07
0.06
[m2 kg‐1 CO2 a‐1]
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.02 0.01
0.01
<<0,01
0.00
Coal power NGCC Ethanol plant Air capture
plant

Figure 17 Land requirement for the provision of CO2 from different sources.
Water demand
250 219
200
[L kg‐1 CO2]
150
100
50
1.28 1.10 <1
0
Coal power NGCC Ethanol plant Air capture
plant

Figure 18 Water demand for the provision of CO2 from different sources. For the ethanol plant, a
range between a lower and an upper value is given.



Material demand Clay
Carbon
0.25
Sodium chlorid
0.20 Silvite
[kg kg‐1 CO2]
0.15 Iron
Calcite
0.10 Gravel
0.05 Crude oil
Natural gas
0.00
Brown coal
Coal power NGCC Ethanol plant
plant Hard coal

Figure 19 Material demand for the provision of CO2 from different sources. The process of air
capture of CO2 is omitted due to a lack of data.

5.2 Allocation of GHG emission
The specific application of LCA to carbon capture and storage or utilization technologies is being
widely discussed and no specific methodology or guiding rules are well agreed on in Europe, or
even recommended by the European Commission. Several aspects of systems definition and LCA
methodologies, however, need to be well specified in any environmental assessment study [55]:
‐ CO2 is obviously a relevant flow to be considered in LCA. The system boundaries should
therefore always include the CO2 capture process but also the CO2 source. Since the
provision of energy for the capture and storage process leads to indirect emissions the
avoided CO2 emissions are usually lower than the amount of captured CO2.
‐ If CO2 is captured from a point source, as power or industrial plants, a main product is
delivered along with the CO2. A power plant produces electricity and an ammonia plant
produces ammonia. However, when CO2 is considered a feedstock instead of an emission,
the problem is the accountability of multifunctional systems. The ISO 14040 standard
recommends the calculation of the environmental impact of the entire system and relate
the impacts to a bundle of all products, e.g. to calculate kg CO2‐eq emissions per (x kg of
product A, and y kg of product B, and …). This option is called system expansion and avoids
any ambiguity in LCA results.
‐ But, from the industrial point of view, a producer wants to know the individual
environmental impact of each product. Allocation of impacts to individual products
becomes necessary. A general recommendation is to use the economic value as a rule for
allocation, although mass, energy or exergy are also recommended. Since allocation
decisions are always controversial in LCA, a full disclosure of the allocation method and a
sensitivity analysis should be included in the assessment.
‐ An intermediate solution of individual environmental profiles is the substitution approach
via system expansion, which consists of the subtraction of environmental impacts
associated to other co‐products which are avoided or produced with lower impact. This
shall be preferred in order to establish priorities of production, since its results are
equivalent to system expansion with complex functional units.
In this regard, the work by von der Assen et al. [56,57] has focused on the determination of the
environmental profile of different CO2 sources by system expansion methodologies. The


conclusions show that processes with a higher emission intensity represent better CO2 sources (i.e.
priority should be given to captured CO2 from ammonia plants, hydrogen, coal power plants, etc)
[58]. In this classification, CO2 captured from air has the lowest environmental profile. On the other
hand, the work by van der Giesen et al. [59] suggests that, in order to achieve a life cycle benefit to
produce fuels from CO2 it is required that solar energy and atmospheric CO2 is used. This conclusion
is corroborated by the SOLAR‐JET system analysis [1] in the technoeconomic assessment of jet fuel
from CO2, which uses an allocation method based on the energy content of all the products of the
system.


6. Conclusions
The techno‐economic and environmental investigation of various CO2 sources corroborate the
initial hypothesis that CO2 feedstock provision for solar‐thermochemical fuel synthesis is well
feasible but also challenging. The main challenges for early solar fuel projects relate to the
identification of suitable CO2 sources in regions with favorable solar irradiation, or to the
integration of pioneering air capture technology at an early stage of commercialization. The main
long‐term challenges relate to sustainable CO2 provision at very large scale, which is expected to
necessitate direct air capture. Annual capacity additions at a rate of about 100 MtCO2 per year will
be required to substitute a relevant fraction of transportation fuel demand within decade time‐
scales. Significant optimization and cost reduction of air capture technology are necessary to
enable scale‐up at such high rates.
Economic and environmental impact of CO2 provision
The main implication of CO2 provision for the system analysis of solar fuels is a moderate
contribution to fuel production costs, and a decisive impact to the sustainability of the fuel
production pathway. One important contribution to the climate impact is due to the CO2 emissions
during fuel combustion, which need to be compensated by a prior reduction of atmospheric CO2
concentration to achieve a carbon neutral fuel path. In this respect, an important contribution is
the life‐cycle impact of the CO2 source itself. In case of air capture, the life cycle impact is
dominated by the high process energy demand, which needs to be covered by waste heat from the
solar fuel plant or from additional renewable energy. The life cycle impact of CO2 point sources is
diverse and needs to be considered for each case individually. In case of biogenic sources the life
cycle impact can be dominated by feedstock provision, energy demand for CO2 capture or CO2
transportation and logistics, if the CO2 source is small or distant from the solar plant.
Conclusions for short‐term CO2 supply at limited scale
Early pilot facilities and first commercial solar fuel plants can be supplied from a plethora of CO2
sources, however, the relatively small CO2 demand of early solar fuel plants (typical scale: about
100 ktCO2/yr or smaller) suggests truck delivery, which strongly penalizes the distance between the
solar plant and the CO2 source. Consequently, early solar fuel plants should be located in close
distance to a suitable CO2 source, or incorporate a direct air capture facility.
Bioenergy facilities are scarce in regions with high levels of direct solar radiation and co‐location
will set severe limitation on the selection of potential sites for early commercial plants. However,
technological risks, capture costs and environmental impact can be very low, especially for
fermentation plants that treat organic residues or wastes. Thus, an existing point source may be
beneficial from an investor’s perspective. Direct air capture technology is currently in an early
phase of limited commercial availability. Consequently, direct air capture may be the preferred
choice from a technology development perspective that is guided by the large‐scale vision of
carbon‐neutral solar fuel synthesis. In summary, the short to medium‐term challenges with
regenerative CO2 provision relate to severe constrains on location and scale if biogenic sources are
utilized, or technological risks and high investment costs if direct air capture is chosen.
Conclusions for long‐term CO2 supply at very large scale
In the long term, direct air capture seems to be the most plausible choice for the majority of
projects if solar fuels are produced on a large scale. The penalties for CO2 transportation over large
distances shrink as pipeline and ship transportation become feasible for capacities exceeding 1
MtCO2 per year. Still, it is expected that the economic and environmental benefits of direct air
capture predominate once capital cost is reduced and process heat is provided by thermal
integration with the solar fuel plant. This expectation is based on the specific material and energy
demand of the CO2 air capture technology on the one hand, and the limited production potential of
other sustainable CO2 sources on the other hand. However, further support and major
development effort will be required to rollout CO2 air capture at the required rates. Nevertheless,


the current technology readiness level and manufacturing readiness level of direct air capture is
well advanced compared to the maturity of key technologies for solar‐thermochemical fuels
production. Implementation roadmaps towards large‐scale solar hydrocarbon fuel production
should ensure that direct air capture technology and plant integration continues to evolve in line
with the scale‐up of solar fuel technology.


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SUN-to-LIQUID
Public Report: Techno-economic and environmental analysis of
CO2 provision from various sources
Authors:
Valentin Batteiger, Christoph Falter, José Luis Gálvez Martos,
Javier Dufour, Diego Iribarren
This work was supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number 15.0330
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreement No 654408

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