Two scenarios for carbon capture and storage in Vietnam

Vietnam plans to develop dozens of new coal-fired power generation units over the next 20 years. If they are indeed build, in order to avoid a dangerous level of global warming, it may appear necessary to dispose of these plants' CO2 by burying it in deep underground geological formations instead of releasing it into the atmosphere, using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. We show that CCS has a technical potential in Vietnam, according to the geology and the industrial geography. To discuss under which economics conditions this potential could actualize, we examine two scenarios for 2050. In the first scenario, CO2 is used in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) only. EOR technology makes CCS cheaper by injecting CO2 in partially depleted oil field, aiming to recover more oil. The second scenario considers CCS deployment in coal-based power plants, on top of using it for EOR. In both scenarios, a few gas-fired CCS power plants are build, reaching 1 GW in 2030, supported by Enhanced Oil Recovery and international carbon finance. The decision point where the two scenarios diverge is in 2030. A scenario to switch all currently existing or planned power plants to low-carbon by 2050 is to retrofit 3.2 GW of coal-fired capacity and install 1.2 GW of gas-fired capacity with CCS every year, starting in 2035 for 15 years. Capture readiness would lower the costs of using CCS in Vietnam, but is not mandatory today.