A Common Modeling Framework to Evaluate and Compare the Economics of CCUS Technologies

The current status of performance and cost estimates for CCUS in power plant applications will be reviewed in this presentation, along with a discussion of the factors that most strongly influence these costs. Because of the large number of variables involved in assessing the economics of CCS options for particular applications—or in assessing the opportunities and risks of R&D investments in new technology—tools are needed that can help managers, researchers, analysts, and technology developers systematically evaluate alternative options in the context of their situation. This presentation will describe and illustrate the use of such a tool developed by Carnegie Mellon University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE/NETL). The IECM (for Integrated Environmental Control Model) is a publicly available model now used by roughly 2000 people at over 800 organizations in more than 50 countries worldwide to evaluate alternative CCUS options for PC, IGCC and NGCC power plants. Examples of how this modeling framework can be employed to systematically (and transparently) evaluate and compare CCUS options for a variety of situations (including new plant vs. retrofit applications, first-of-a-kind vs. Nth-of-a-kind costs, etc.) will be discussed and illustrated. The limitations of a standardized approach also will be discussed.