Carbon Capture Costs: FEED & pre-FEED Cost Reports

Electricore Inc., with Svante Inc. and Kiewit Engineering Group Inc., is conducting a pre-FEED study for a 1 million tonnes/year VeloxoTherm™ carbon capture system at LafargeHolcim’s cement plant in Florence, Colorado. The system will capture CO₂ from both kiln flue gas (14% concentration) and a natural gas-fired steam generator (8.5% concentration), with storage options including saline formations, depleted oil reservoirs, and the Sheep Mountain CO₂ reservoir. The study will also evaluate expansion to 2 million tonnes/year and target DOE’s $30/tonne capture cost goal, progressing from design selection (FEL-1) to pre-FEED engineering (FEL-2).

In March 2010, the Scottish CCS (Carbon Capture & Storage) Consortium began an extensive Front End, Engineering and Design (FEED) study to assess what exactly would be required from an engineering, commercial and regulatory, perspective in order to progress the CCS demonstration project at Longannet Power station in Scotland (Goldeneye) through to construction. The study has yielded invaluable knowledge in areas such as cost, design, end-to-end CCS chain operation, health and safety, environment, consent and permitting, risk management, and lessons learnt.

Dastur International Inc., with Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., is designing a carbon capture system for the 5 mtpa integrated steel plant in Burns Harbor, Indiana, to capture 50–70% of CO₂ emissions from blast furnace gas. The system will combine a gas flow distribution network, a specialized conditioning process, and ION Clean Energy’s solvent-based capture technology with 90–98% efficiency, with water-gas shift reactors enabling higher capture rates. Dastur will lead overall plant integration and engineering, while ION designs the capture island and Dastur Energy optimizes design and energy performance.