The Role of CCUS Clusters and Hubs in Reaching Carbon Neutrality: Case Study from the Baltic Sea Region

The cross-border case study for the Baltic Sea Region includes the large emission sources from energy production, the cement industry, refineries, waste-to-energy plants and other large bio-emissions, identified in the Baltic States. The need to combine CO2 emission sources from three countries into large CCUS cluster projects is explained by geological and regulatory limitations. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are situated within the common Baltic sedimentary basin. The best geological conditions for CO2 geological storage are available in Latvia. In 2021 three countries produced about 15.9 Mt of large CO2 emissions, including more than 2.2 Mt of bio-CO2 emissions, located not far from the existing gas pipelines, which could connect emitters with storage sites and ports. The average optimistic storage capacity of the Cambrian Deimena Regional stage sandstones in the E6 structure, located 80 km from the Port of Klaipeda, is about 365 Mt CO2. The largest onshore storage sites Dobele, North-Blidene and Blidene have a total average optimistic storage capacity of about 402.6 Mt. CO2 emissions from three countries, including bio-emissions, could be captured, transported, used and stored in geological structures during more than 50 years. The regulatory process to permit CO2 storage in Latvia has been started, initiated by Latvian largest CO2 producers. Considering that 14% of the reported emissions are of biological origin, carbon neutrality could be reached in the Baltic States. Hydrogen production and storage and geothermal energy recovery using CO2 could be combined in the proposed CCUS clusters, using for H2 storage small E6-B compartment of the E6 structure offshore and Blidene structure onshore