Volume 11: Sustainable Energy Solutions for Changing the World: Part III

Considerations for Making Steel Plants CCS-Ready in China Xi Liang, Qianguo Lin, Lihua Ren, Mengfei Jiang, Jon Gibbins, Muxin Liu, Sam Cooke, Zhigang Jia, Hasan Muslemani

Abstract

The steel sector is one of the largest industrial sources of CO2 emissions, contributing around 28% of the global industry sector’s direct greenhouse gas emissions. One crucial technological option for decreasing emissions is carbon capture and storage (CCS). ‘CCS readiness’ or ‘CO2 Capture Readiness (CCSR)’ is a design concept requiring minimal up-front investment in the present to maintain the potential for CCS retrofit in the future. As such, capture readiness avoids a carbon lock-in effect in the steel industry. This report outlines the essential technical and design requirements to ensure that a steel plant is capture-ready. Through a case study for a hypothetical CCSR project for capturing 0.5 million tonnes of CO2 using ASPEN Plus, a conceptual design for meeting the requirements of a carbon capture-ready steel plant is developed. The space required for the capture unit at a 0.5 million tonnes level is estimated at around 4,000m2. The comprehensive utilisation of waste heat would be advantageous for CCS applications in China’s steel production. It is recommended that back-pressure steam turbines are used to drive multi-stage CO2 compression instead of electric-motor-driven compressors with huge power loads of 7,100kW. Potential pre-investment options are identified to ease future capture retrofit.

Keywords Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS, Carbon Capture Readiness, CCS Readiness