Transcript Slide 1

Learning rates
Nils Markusson
Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs
The problem –
predicting the future of CCS
Demand from policy-makers (and companies?!):
what technologies, when, what costs?
But prediction is difficult or even impossible
So, best possible guesses
UK Energy Research Centre
- modelling of the energy sector
- many supply technologies
- economists, engineers, innovation policy researchers
Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs
A possible approach –
‘learning rates’
Learning-by-doing
(Grubb, 2006)
Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs
Learning rates - equation
cost2xcap / costcap = 1 - LR
- per accumulated capacity, not time
- all unknowns...
Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs
LR and CCS
Estimating future costs
- we need initial cost, LR and capacities
1. Initial costs: estimates avilable
2. LR: historical analogues
(11-12%, capture, environmental technology)
3. Capacities: deployment scenarios
Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs
Example calculation
Target: from 80 to 10-20 €/t in 2020
Cost per
tonne, €/t
100
80
60
Literature
40
Industry target
LR 24-34%
20
0
0
1
2
3
(2010)
4
5
(2020)
Doublings of installed capacity
Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs
Some of the known problems
1. Not always any learning like this
2. Sensitive to initial cost and time
3. Learning not always smooth
Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs
What to do next
1. Develop different scenarios
- deployment, breakthroughs
2. Complement with qualitative accounts
3. Highlight policy implications
Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs
With breakthroughs
90
Cost per
tonne, €/t
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
1
2
3
4
(2010)
Doublings of installed capacity
Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage
www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs
5
(2020)