Feasibility Analysis of Carbon Trading for Hydrogen Production from Natural Gas

In this paper, feasibility analysis of carbon trading for a hydrogen production plant was analyzed. The production method was selected to be methane reforming, as a result of which 5.5 grams of carbon dioxide per gram of hydrogen are formed. A financial model that accepts the annual production capacity as the input was created. Based on the model, total capital investment of carbon sequestration equipment, whose technology was based on chemical scrubbing via monoethanolamine, the annual operation cost of the carbon sequestration equipment and the annual cost of purchasing carbon credits from other companies were calculated. The feasibility decision was made up on those three parameters. The results showed that for low production capacities, approximately 10,000 tones of hydrogen per year, carbon trading can be more feasible in short term whereas in the long run installing and operating carbon sequestration equipment is more feasible for all meaningful capacities. The findings indicate that carbon trading can be a cost-effective method for hydrogen production plants in the first years of operation, when the rate of return on investment is low.