Hydrocarbon-Based Processes

Introduction

Currently, approximately 78% of the world's primary energy is supplied by fossil fuels (IEA 2020c). As shown earlier, while the drive to economy-wide decarbonization will decrease fossil fuel use, fossil fuels will continue to play a critical role in the global energy system in a decarbonized future. Additionally, technologies that have traditionally been associated with fossil electricity production, like CCS, will be an important option in achieving NZE due to their ability to be used in the extraction of CO₂ from the ecosystem. The production of carbon neutral and carbon negative fuels will be the foundation for a NZE network.

The Hydrocarbon-Base Processes TSC is focused on evaluating and advancing technologies in the following areas:

• Production of low-carbon energy carriers from hydrocarbons;

• Processes for converting hydrogen to other hydrogen-based fuels such as ammonia;

• Conversion of CO₂ to fuels; and

• CCS from industrial sources as well as from the atmosphere (that is, DAC).

In an effort to achieve NZE, a holistic look at the production of low-carbon AECs and synthetic hydrocarbons must include their production from hydrocarbons where the resulting emissions are captured in some way. As previously highlighted, over 98% of current dedicated hydrogen production comes from fossil fuels (IEA 2019b). Combining carbon capture with these fossil fuel-based processes offers a near-term, low-carbon hydrogen production pathway. Hydrogen produced using low- or no-carbon methods is also a key ingredient for the production of synthetic hydrocarbon fuels (for example, SNG) and chemicals that also function as AECs (for example, ammonia, methanol). The other key ingredient for synthetic hydrocarbons is CO₂. Captured CO₂ can be reused to make fuels which can be inserted back into existing infrastructure. The use of low-carbon energy to generate liquid and gaseous so-called "drop in" fuels, which are those compatible with existing fossil-based infrastructures, would help to address energy storage challenges and accelerate the integration of clean AECs such as hydrogen, ammonia, and synthetic hydrocarbons.

One key challenge associated with these AECs is the cost of production. For example, while hydrogen production is a widespread industrial process today, most hydrogen production is achieved through carbon-intensive, fossil-based processes. Currently, integrating CCS with these processes nearly doubles hydrogen production costs.

Key Research Questions

Over the course of the LCRI, the TSC intends to address the following research questions.

1. What are the net cost and benefits from energy systems that employ the following:

   1. Synthetic fuel production (often referred to as E-fuels)

   2. Hydrogen production from hydrocarbon feedstocks (for example, hydrogen from steam-methane reforming (SMR) with CCS, methane pyrolysis)

   3. Non-carbon fuels production from hydrocarbon feedstocks (for example, ammonia)

   4. Industrial CCS and DAC for CO₂ supply/reuse

2. What is the technoeconomic potential of displacing existing fossil fuel supply with low-carbon chemicals and fuels produced from low-carbon hydrogen and/or CO₂ captured from industrial processes or the atmosphere?

3. For the applications listed above, what are the cost impacts and emissions reductions potential compared to alternative decarbonization pathways?

4. What are the primary barriers to deployment of low-carbon, fossil-based hydrogen production pathways in the near term? Under which conditions is retrofitting existing fossil-based hydrogen production capacity with CCS more favorable than deployment of low-carbon electrolytic hydrogen production capacity?

5. What is the potential for deploying greater than 90% carbon capture rates in hydrogen production and industrial applications? What are the impacts on cost, operational factors, and emissions reduction associated with higher capture rates?

Research Effort

Projects developed in the TSC are expected to produce engineering analyses and reports that include cost, performance, and net CO₂ emissions information. Both technoeconomic and life-cycle analyses approaches will be used to help stakeholders identify and prioritize technology options.

Conversion of molecules to create synthetic hydrocarbons requires process integration among a variety of technologies such as water-gas shift reactors and reformers, among others. Integration of molecular conversion technologies to CCS and/or electrolysis is critical to understand the potential of these carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels.

The TSC intends to focus on the deployment of CCS to produce AECs. Examples include hydrogen production from SMR with CCS. While this process uses pressure swing adsorption to separate hydrogen and CO₂ to increase the purity of the product hydrogen, there has been little work on carbon capture to reduce the processes' overall CO₂ emissions. Potential research includes assessments of the cost and energy needed to deploy CCS for 90+% capture of CO₂.

Research Goals

The overall research objective for this TSC is to analyze and demonstrate energy systems that provide pathways toward adopting net-zero carbon fuels from hydrocarbon-based technologies. It is envisioned that the following technology areas provide the most promising options toward this objective:

1. Develop and demonstrate production of low-carbon AECs (for example, hydrogen, ammonia); and

2. Develop and demonstrate production of low-carbon hydrocarbon fuels (for example, SNG, Fischer-Tropsch liquids, methanol).

Besides pilot projects, other research options include life cycle assessments of both cost and energy, which are largely based on computer modeling or analysis. There are several prototype and demonstration projects active worldwide that could be assessed to support accurate comparisons of various technologies. LCRI can help lead this effort, collecting the most current global information on these low/no-carbon energy systems.

Goal 1: Support large-scale technology integration

• Strategy 1: Understand current state-of-the-art and develop gap analysis for future technology integration and deployment

  • Action: Evaluate commercial technologies that produce AECs and synthetic hydrocarbons (for example, hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, Fischer-Tropsch liquids, and methane).

• Strategy 2: Define cost, emissions, and performance metrics and evaluate role of hydrocarbon-based processes compared to other technologies

  • Action: Conduct a life-cycle assessment for converting hydrocarbons to AECs both with and without CCS for use in the energy industry.

  • Action: Conduct a life-cycle assessment for converting CO₂ to synthetic hydrocarbons.

Goal 2: Identify and lead efforts to accelerate technology deployment

• Strategy 1: Develop evaluation standards and methods to compare technology pathways

  • Action: Collect information on ongoing global activities and identify key performance, cost, and emissions reduction metrics.

• Strategy 2: Conduct engineering studies

  • Action: Identify relevant R&D projects (for example, additional engineering and economic studies, lab- to pilot-scale projects, or other similar activities).

Anticipated Role of the LCRI in Technology Development

The TSC routinely evaluates the landscape of commercial and developing technologies relevant to the research goals. The TSC has organized technologies by anticipated role of the LCRI in technology development (see Figure 17). The TSC seeks to balance many considerations when choosing the anticipated level of activity. These considerations include projected deployment timeframe, level of effort, focus, and investment of other organizations/initiatives with similar goals, potential role in supporting various industries/sectors in decarbonization strategies, and amount of relevant information available to conduct thorough analyses, among others. Over the course of the initiative, the TSC intends to update these positions based on research results from ongoing TSC activities and energy-economy modeling results produced by the Integrated Energy System Analysis TSC.

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Figure 17: Anticipated Role of the LCRI in Technology Development (Hydrocarbon-Based Processes)

Joint Areas of Research with Other Technical Subcommittees

The list below outlines areas where joint research with, and integration of, activities from other TSCs will be necessary.

• Health, safety, and environmental aspects of manufacturing, storage, and transport of hydrogen, ammonia, and other AECs.

• Hydrogen storage technologies.

• Integration with power generation and other high-volume end-uses.

• Hydrogen blending with the natural gas infrastructure versus decentralized systems.