Low-Carbon Footprint Hydrogen Production from Natural Gas: A Techno-Economic Analysis of Carbon Capture and Storage from Steam-Methane Reforming

• Main Authors: Simon Roussanaly, Rahul Anantharaman, Chao Fu
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: AIDIC Servizi S.r.l. 2020
• Subjects: Chemical engineering; TP155-156; Computer engineering. Computer hardware; TK7885-7895; Norway; Northern Norway
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3303/CET2081170; https://doaj.org/article/b9145bee06b7443c960101c95400b024

Enabling cost-efficient low-carbon footprint hydrogen production is key to achieve the ambition of the Paris Agreement. This study aims to understand the techno-economic performances of hydrogen production from natural gas without and with carbon capture and storage. A hydrogen plant, based on steam-methane reforming and located in Northern Norway, producing 450 t H2/d is here modelled and evaluated. Hydrogen production costs without and with carbon emissions capture and storage of 12.2 and 18.1 c€/Nm3 are obtained. This hydrogen cost increase results in a CO2 avoidance of 67 €/tCO2,avoided. The main contributor to the CO2 avoidance cost is the CO2 capture and conditioning (57 %), while pipeline transport and the storage contribute to 17 % and 26 %. Equally important, a semi-detailed cost breakdown is presented to provide a deeper understanding of the key contributors to the cost of the whole chain and to identify points which if reduced could have the most impact.