Carbon Capture Costs: FEED & pre-FEED Cost Reports

The Red Trail Energy (RTE) ethanol facility in Richardton, North Dakota, is implementing a CO₂ capture and liquefaction system designed by Trimeric. The system captures CO₂ from fermentation, compresses it to ~350 psig, dehydrates and liquefies it using an ammonia refrigeration loop, and purifies it via distillation to remove oxygen and other gases. The liquid CO₂ can be stored for sale or geologic sequestration. The facility is designed to process 587 tonnes/day (scalable to 675 tonnes/day), with nearly complete CO₂ recovery.

Tampa Electric Company, with ION Clean Energy, Sargent & Lundy, Koch Specialty Plant Services, and Siemens Energy, completed a FEED study to retrofit post-combustion CO2 capture onto Unit 2 of the Polk Power Station, a 1,190 MWe (1,168 MWe net) 4x4x1 natural gas combined cycle plant in Mulberry, Florida. Using ION Clean Energy's ICE-31 advanced solvent across two parallel capture trains, the design targets at least 95% capture, nearly 3.7 million tonnes of CO2 per year, with downstream Siemens compression and dehydration and integrated pipeline transport to dedicated Class VI geologic storage. Each train includes a direct contact cooler, absorber, stripper, and compression, with the absorber columns sized to support 1x1 operation at 75% combustion turbine load to preserve dispatch flexibility. The study was funded under DOE Award DE-FE0032224 and produced an AACE Class 3 (-20%/+30%) capital cost and cost-of-capture estimate.

Calpine Texas CCUS Holdings LLC, with Electricore Inc., is conducting a FEED study for a modular post-combustion CO₂ capture system at the Deer Park Energy Center NGCC plant in Texas. Using Shell’s commercial-scale amine technology, the system will capture 95% of emissions—about 5 MTPA—while maintaining low energy use and fast reaction rates. The study will include business case, techno-economic, life cycle, environmental, and public policy analyses, including environmental justice and job creation impacts.