Abstract
The purpose of this thesis was to assess the feasibility
of carbon capture in Finnish Kraft pulp mills. The
feasibilities of thirteen different technology options
were evaluated based on their technical maturity, capture
potential and estimated break-even price for emission
allowance including biogenic emissions. Also the role of
pulp and paper in-dustry in climate change mitigation was
discussed.
The study was conducted by comparing oxy-fuel combustion
cases modelled with Balas software and a fuel switch
option calculated based on mass and energy balances with
results from previous studies. The technical maturity was
evaluated based on previous studies and existing
commercial activity. The break-even prices from
literature were recalculated under the same assumptions
for investment costs, commodity costs and supporting
policies. Two price estimates were calculated: one
including supporting pol-icies and possibly available
revenue and another excluding them. The capture potential
was estimated using a reference mill scaled to the pulp
production rate of 1200 ADt/d. Part of the technologies
require large structural changes and were considered
available only if the mill is rebuilt. Thus the capture
potential in the reference mill was scaled up based on
either the capture potential in mills to be rebuilt by
2030 or the capture poten-tial in all Finnish pulp mills.
The relevant capture potential was calculated based on
the production capacities and the estimated age
distribution of the chemical recovery sec-tions in
Finnish pulp mills. The results from this thesis were
subjected to qualitative and numerical sensitivity
analyses.
Carbon capture in pulp mills seems feasible only if other
revenues than CCS supporting policies are available.
These revenues could include by-products like biofuels,
higher energy efficiency or increased pulp production.
The cases of lignin separation and black liquor
gasification to transportation fuels were most cost
efficient, but the capture poten-tials were limited to
1.45 Mt(CO2)/a and 0.82 Mt(CO2)/a, respectively. Small
scale car-bon capture for utilization could be achieved
with pre-calcination, as the break-even price was only
around 4.5-7.3 /t(CO2). Large scale implementation of
carbon capture in the Finnish pulp mills with
monoethanolamine (MEA) absorption had a capture
po-tential of up to 12 Mt(CO2)/a, but the break-even
price was around 70-80 /t(CO2) ex-cluding transportation
and storage costs. Moreover, barriers in transportation
and stor-age and in the lack of incentives for bio-CCS
remain. In addition to CCS, the pulp and paper industry
could mitigate the climate change by increasing the
amount of carbon based products, sustainable forestry
practices and investments in forestation.
Original language | English |
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Qualification | Master Degree |
Awarding Institution |
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Place of Publication | Tampere |
Publisher | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
MoE publication type | G2 Master's thesis, polytechnic Master's thesis |
Keywords
- bio-CCS
- Finnish pulp and paper industry
- monoethanolamine ab-sorption
- oxy-fuel combustion
- oxy-enrichment
- fuel switch
- pre-calcination
- chemical-looping combustion
- black liquor gasification
- lignin separation