Decarbonizing the energy and industry sectors in Thailand by carbon capture and storage

In this paper, we evaluate decarbonization opportunities for the power and industry sectors in Thailand by carbon capture and storage (CCS). Stationary CO2 sources from the power sector include coal-fired, natural gas-fired and waste-to-energy power plants. Stationary CO2 sources from the industry sector include cement factories, refineries, iron and steel mills, petrochemical plants, and natural gas processing plants. Potential sites for subsurface CO2 storage include oil fields, gas fields and saline aquifers in four offshore sedimentary basins (Songkhla, Pattani, Chumpon, Malay) and six onshore sedimentary basins (Fang, Phetchabun, Phitsanulok, Suphan Buri, Kamphaeng Saen, and Khorat). Data used in this study come from an extensive review of peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and published reports. Results show that stationary CO2 emission from the two sectors is 143 Mtpa consisting of 79 Mtpa from power plants and 64 Mtpa from industrial plants. The biggest CO2 emission in the power sector comes from natural gas-fired power plants whereas that from the industry sector comes from cement factories. There is a total of 79 Gt of subsurface CO2 storage capacity (mid case scenario) in Thailand, which is enough to store 554 years of CO2 emission from stationary sources. Of this, 77.6 Gt (98%) comes from saline aquifers, 1.7 Gt (2%) from gas reservoirs, and only 0.05 Gt (<1%) from oil reservoirs. Therefore, saline aquifers are the most important sites for subsurface CO2 storage. We propose using CCS clusters to reduce the overall project cost by using economies of scale. In a CCS cluster, multiple CO2 sources are mapped to a common CO2 sink by sharing the same CO2 capture, transport, and injection network. A CO2 source-sink mapping exercise results in the identification of six CCS clusters. For Cluster I, we propose a CCS demonstration project by capturing CO2 emitted from cement factories near the city of Saraburi and transporting it to the nearby Sirikit oil field for CO2-enhanced oil recovery. This project can potentially recover 29 MMbbl of incremental oil. For Cluster II, CO2 emitted from natural gas-ired power plants around Bangkok and petrochemical plants in Rayong is captured and stored in saline aquifers in the nearby Khorat Basin. For all other CCS clusters, emitted CO2 can be stored in saline aquifers within a 200 km distance. However, detailed characterization of saline aquifers in Thai sedimentary basins such as caprock integrity, reservoir connectivity, net-to-gross etc., is required to materialize these CCS projects.