Piera Patrizio

Piera Patrizio uses spatially explicit models to explore the economic feasibility of the industrial sector investing in carbon mitigation solutions.

To examine how greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial and energy sectors might be reduced, I extensively investigated different carbon mitigation options in literature. I included increasing the energy efficiency of the power generation technologies, the shift to greener energy sources, as well as the adoption of carbon capturing technologies and the consequent reutilization or storage of the sequestrated CO2. However, the extent to which these solutions can be adopted depends on a suite of spatially explicit factors and therefore needs to be evaluated on a site-specific basis.

 I adopt a spatially explicit approach to identify candidate industries and power generation plants for which carbon capture technologies can be economically feasible, according to different economic and policy frameworks. I use the techno economic model BeWhere, which optimizes the cost of the entire energy supply chain from the supply resources to the storage of the CO2.

For two case studies in the USA, the results show that the CO2 reutilization (i.e., for biofuel production) can be a cost-efficient choice under US fossil energy market conditions, while the adoption of carbon capture and storage pathways is dependent on the level of CO2 prices and local factors such as the magnitude of CO2 sequestration and the proximity of storage sites. 

More information

Funding: IIASA Postdoctoral Program

Nationality: Italian

Program: Ecosystems Services and Management Program

Dates: July 2016 – July 2018


Print this page

Last edited: 14 February 2017

CONTACT DETAILS

Aleksandra Cofala

Capacity Development Coordinator Capacity Development and Academic Training Unit

Related research program

APPLY NOW

Postdoctoral research at IIASA

PUBLICATIONS

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313