Learning rates and cost reduction potential of indirect coal-to-liquid technology coupled with CO2 capture

Coal-to-liquids (CTL) and CO2 capture and storage (CCS) have attracted increasing attention in energy supply systems, but few empirical studies and industrial data are available regarding the learning rates and future cost curves. In this study, methods and equations for estimating the learning rates of indirect CTL technology coupled CO2 capture (CC) were introduced. Thermal efficiency was considered as the system efficiency and CO2 emission were obtained from Aspen Plus simulation. Economic parameters were estimated using a cost estimation model. The results showed that when the cumulative production of oil reaches 100 million tons, the oil cost for FT with CC may decrease by 5.9%-21.2%, whereas that for FT without CC may decrease by 6.3%-22.4%. CO2 emission reduction costs may decrease by approximately 8.9%-32.3%. FT with CC technology may not be economical compared with FT without CC for some time. The price of CO2 emissions in national ETS might be not enough to stimulate companies to adopt CCS. We also discussed the effects of the technological maturity and the overall performance improvements. Improvement of technological R&D was needed in some key technologies such as coal gasification and FT synthesis, as well as industrial demonstrations.