Estimation of carbon capture and storage transport cost in Korea

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is considered as one of the important countermeasures to reduce carbon emission. The Korean government is providing complete support to commercialize CCS. In order to facilitate CCS projects in Korea, there are some preconditions that need to be fulfilled. The geologic condition of isolated sites to store CO2 and technical condition of CO2 capture, transport, and storage implementations must be technically feasible. Once all the/these geological and technical conditions have been met, another issue should be addressed. CCS projects require huge costs; it is, therefore, very critical to estimate the cost of the projects as preliminary data prior to the decision-making process. This study suggests the importance of cost analysis in conducting integrated CCS projects and (also) estimates the cost of CCS pipeline transport that will be implemented in the near future as a case study. The overall cost estimation structure is complied with Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies Integrated Carbon Capture and Storage Economics Model with the data collected by the Korean companies (Korea Gas Corporation, Korea National Oil Corporation, and so on). The results show that the transport cost is $6.61 per ton CO2 for 50 km both onshore and offshore, which incurred during the period of 20 years. The estimated cost is higher than that of the Australian projects, at least in the category of pipeline transport.