Deployment potential and economic cost analysis of CCUS in high-emission industries: A case study of Liaoning Province, China

Abstract

Achieving China’s dual-carbon goals requires accelerated CCUS deployment, yet provinces with concentrated emissions and limited site-level storage remain understudied. This study developed a plant-level source-sink database for Liaoning Province and applied a MILP model enhanced with DBSCAN to assess mitigation potential, costs, and matching strategies. Annual CO₂ emissions from coal power, steel, and cement plants reached 112.43, 141.32, and 22.04 Mt. Storage capacity in oil fields and saline aquifers totaled 25.69 Gt. However, most oil fields cannot independently meet sequestration needs. Within 250 km, 13 cement plants could be matched, achieving 9.09 Mt CO₂ mitigation demand at –42.24 $/t. Clustering oil fields into three groups increased cement-sector mitigation to 10.32 Mt and lowered costs to –87.88 $/t, although this configuration did not support matches for steel plants or coal-fired power plants. This is a planning-oriented screening and matching study conducted under specific assumptions: a 250 km transport distance limit, a project start year of 2030, and a 30-year operational lifetime, rather than a full dynamic deployment pathway analysis. This study offers a theoretical foundation and pathway reference for other industrial provinces under storage-constrained conditions.