Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijggc Key factors for achieving emission reduction goals cognizant of CCS Hadi Farabi-Asl a, *, Kenshi Itaoka b , Andrew Chapman b , Etsushi Kato c , Atsushi Kurosawa c a Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan b International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I 2 CNER), Kyushu University, Japan c The Institute of Applied Energy, Tokyo, Japan ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Low-carbon CCS Hydrogen import Steelmaking Energy systems analysis TIMES-Japan ABSTRACT In order to achieve the Paris Agreement target of well below 2-degrees centigrade goal, developed countries have committed to reducing their emissions considerably during the coming decades. In order to achieve the ambi- tious target of an 80 % CO 2 emission reduction in Japan by 2050 (compared to 2013 levels), various energy efficient and low-carbon technologies on the supply and demand sides of the energy system must be deployed at reasonable cost. In this study, we investigate the possibility of achieving the emission reduction targets in Japan using the TIMES-Japan framework, which employs a least cost optimization approach. The contribution of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in achieving the emission reduction targets is studied in various scenarios as alongside the evaluation of two important emission reducing technologies in the same energy sector as CCS. Results of the analysis reveals the importance of hydrogen import on the supply side and the electrification of steel-making furnaces (EAF) on the demand side in order to obtain “feasible” scenarios. The minimum amount of CCS capacity is calculated for each scenario and the results vary between 5 and 150 million tons of CO 2 by 2050. The range of minimum CCS capacity is wide and affected by the availability of hydrogen imports and EAF for steelmaking in various scenarios; while extremely low CCS capacity results in a very high energy system cost. Based on the results of our analysis, policy implications for appropriate levels of CCS, hydrogen import and EAF deployment are discussed. 1. Introduction and literature review Japan has made a commitment to reduce CO 2 emissions drastically in the coming decades (Kuriyama et al., 2019; Watabe et al., 2019). After the Fukushima nuclear incident in 2011, a restriction has been applied on nuclear powered generation in Japan, which brought to the fore the role of renewable energy sources and other low-carbon energy technologies (Chapman and Itaoka, 2018). Conference of Parties 21 (COP21) long-term reduction pathways require deep, economy-wide emission reductions of 80 % or more by 2050 (UNFCCG, 2018). Results of various reports and studies suggest that the achievement of ambi- tious emission reduction targets at a reasonable cost will not be possible without the contribution of carbon capture and storage (CCS) (Budinis et al., 2018). CCS technology can be applied both to industrial pro- duction and power generation, and in recent years, several studies have been conducted to investigate the application of CCS to a range of technologies in different countries. Leeson et al. (2017) conducted techno-economic analysis and a systematic review of CCS applied to high purity industrial sources, in- cluding iron and steel, cement, oil refining, and paper industries. They carried out a sensitivity analysis to evaluate the effect of important parameters on the cost of CCS. The factors found to have the greatest overall impact were the initial cost of CCS at the start of deployment and the start date at which large scale deployment is begun, identifying that a slower initial deployment rate after the start date also leads to significantly increased costs. Xiang et al. (2014) conducted a detailed techno-economic analysis of the coal-to-olefins (CTO) process using CCS in China. They calculated the corresponding mitigation cost of processing with an 80 % carbon capture rate as 150 RMB/t, roughly equivalent to the regional carbon price. As a result, the CTO process with CCS is competitive in terms of cost for the methanol-to-olefins (MTO) process. Jiang and Bhattacharyya (2017) conducted a techno-economic analysis of a direct coal-biomass to liquids (CBTL) plant with shale gas utilization and CCS. They developed the process model in Aspen Plus and used the Aspen Process Economic Analyzer (APEA) for their ana- lysis. Results of their analysis showed that integration of a CCS unit into the CBTL process increases the price of the final product by about 10 %. Bhave et al. (2017) conducted a techno-economic assessment of biomass power generation with CCS to meet the 2050 emission targets https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2020.103097 Received 27 December 2019; Received in revised form 31 March 2020; Accepted 10 June 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: farabi@chikyu.ac.jp (H. Farabi-Asl). International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 99 (2020) 103097 1750-5836/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T