A techno-economic assessment of carbon-sequestration tax incentives in the U.S. power sector

Abstract Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a prominent mitigation technology in many of the pathways to achieve global net-zero carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions. Despite this proposed importance, only one operational power facility in the U.S. is currently equipped with CCS. Further CCS capacity may be promoted with recently-enhanced tax credits for carbon sequestration in Section 45Q of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. In this paper, we expand the unit-specific techno-economic model ESTEAM to include coal-fired and natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) retrofitted CCS capacity and new NGCC CCS capacity to evaluate CCS for sequestration in the projected 2030 U.S. fossil-fuel fleet. Using this model in a parametric study, we conclude that unique credit levels for each CCS option are required for each option to separately achieve the same percent generation level of the projected 2030 net generation. We further find that increasing the credit duration can lower the CO2 avoided cost for the fleets and increase CCS-capacity bridging from 2030 to 2050. Overall, we determine that a lower avoided cost for immediate sequestration is achieved through promoting new and existing NGCC CCS.