Early projects of Carbon Capture, Use and Geological Storage (CCUS) could be feasible when fossil fuel-power plants are close to oil and gas reservoirs where CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technologies are applicable. This Thesis includes estimates for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused in a hypothetical CCUS case with a Natural Gas Combined Cycle power plant (NGCC), which were obtained by using Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. This research comprises a comparison with other electricity-generation technologies, including Super Critical Pulverized Carbon (SCPC), NGCC without CO2 capture, geothermal, mini-hydro, wind and nuclear ones. The LCA stages that were undertaken in this study were natural gas supply system, electricity generation, CO2 capture, CO2 transport, EOR operations and environmental monitoring. Three different functional units were used in this study: MJ, kWh and produced oil barrel (bbl). Results indicate that energy produced by the described CCUS system has an environmental impact on climate change of 0.044 kgCO2e/MJ. The NGCC power plant with carbon capture unit would produce 0.177 kgCO2e/kWh, representing about 21% and 36% of the estimated values for the SCPC and NGCC (without CCS) cases respectively, and about 24% less greenhouse gas emissions than the geothermal scenario. The oil produced in the EOR activity has a greenhouse gas emissions of 38 kgCO2e/bbl, 37% less than the historical average in the US. In a “well to well” approach, closing the carbon cycle during primary energy production may become a competitive technology to renewable energy sources.
A TECHNICAL, ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF AMINE-BASED CO2 CAPTURE TECHNOLOGY FOR POWER PLANT GREENHOUSE GAS CONTROL