The pipeline network for the <em>slow oil production scenarios</em> consists of approximately 540 miles of pipe of various diameters from 8 to 20 in

<p><strong>Figure 1.</strong> The pipeline network for the <em>slow oil production scenarios</em> consists of approximately 540 miles of pipe of various diameters from 8 to 20 in. The pipeline network for the <em>fast oil production scenarios</em> consists of approximately 1400 miles of pipe of various diameters from 8 to 20 in. Note that 4 segments (including the 'trunk' line connecting WA Parish and Tom O'Connor) are assumed to have 3 parallel 20 in pipelines, and 2 segments are assumed to have 2 parallel 20 in pipelines.</p> <p><strong>Abstract</strong></p> <p>This letter compares several bounding cases for understanding the economic viability of capturing large quantities of anthropogenic CO₂ from coal-fired power generators within the Electric Reliability Council of Texas electric grid and using it for pure CO₂ enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the onshore coastal region of Texas along the Gulf of Mexico. All captured CO₂ in excess of that needed for EOR is sequestered in saline formations at the same geographic locations as the oil reservoirs but at a different depth. We analyze the extraction of oil from the same set of ten reservoirs within 20- and five-year time frames to describe how the scale of the carbon dioxide capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) network changes to meet the rate of CO₂ demand for oil recovery. Our analysis shows that there is a negative system-wide net present value (NPV) for all modeled scenarios. The system comes close to breakeven economics when capturing CO₂ from three coal-fired power plants to produce oil via CO₂-EOR over 20 years and assuming no CO₂ emissions penalty. The NPV drops when we consider a larger network to produce oil more quickly (21 coal-fired generators with CO₂ capture to produce 80% of the oil within five years). Upon applying a CO₂ emissions penalty of 60$2009/tCO₂ to fossil fuel emissions to ensure that coal-fired power plants with CO₂ capture remain in baseload operation, the system economics drop significantly. We show near profitability for the cash flow of the EOR operations only; however, this situation requires relatively cheap electricity prices during operation.