Study On Risk Assessment Of Carbon Capture And Storage Technology Application Project

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the most promising CO2emission reduction options, the scaled application of which is able to radically reduce the content of CO2in the atmosphere while keep the normal use of fossil fuels. Based on this, CCS is regarded to play an important role in technology portfolio for climate change mitigation. Given that China is facing severe challenge on CO2reduction and will rely on coal as its main energy in the future, it is necessary for China to develop CCS technology. However, the development of CCS worldwide is on the early stage so that it may suffer serious risks for China to develop scaled CCS project. This research is about the development of scaled CCS project in China with the aim of identifying and evaluating risks as well as making corresponding risk treatment measures. Main research contents of this dissertation are summarized as follows.Firstly, an analysis framework for CCS project risk assessment is constructed. Based on traditional risk theory and project management principles, the definition of CCS project risk is defined, characteristics and formation of CCS project risk are explored, and a social-technical system based CCS project risk assessment framework is constructed.Secondly, risk factors of CCS project are identified with the application of literature review and actor network theory analysis method. The results show that CCS project development in China may encounter risks from aspects of technology, HSE (health, safety and environment), market, energy and resources, as well as policy and regulations. After that, the corresponding work units which risk factors may work on are identified by constructing work-risk metric. Risk factors are further analyzed with regard to their characteristics.Thirdly, risk assessment is processed by applying methods of analytic network process and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. The results show that among all the22risk assessment indices, weights of investment risk, national policy risk and public acceptance risk list top three, while weights of underground resources destruction risk and technician skill risk come in last. Besides, the comprehensive value of CCS project risk is3.7702which mean a medium to high risk level. Given these results, risks of CCS project development should be taken seriously and efficient precaution should be made.Fourthly, case study of risk assessment is conducted on China’s first demonstration CCS project. Risks of this case project are analysed particularly and risk fuzzy comprehensive evaluation is conducted. Results show that comprehensive risk level of case project is much lower than that of regular CCS project which reflects the case project’s characteristics in project scale, site selection and technologies applied. Finally, in order to cope with CCS project risks, a continuously improving risk treatment mode as well as risk preventing and reducing measures are proposed.