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arXiv · 2509.13674

Scaling green hydrogen and CCUS via cement-methanol co-production in China

Abstract

High costs of green hydrogen and of carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) have hindered policy ambition and slowed real-world deployment, despite their importance for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors, including cement and methanol. Given the economic challenges of adopting CCUS in cement and green hydrogen in methanol production separately, we propose a renewable-powered co-production system that couples electrolytic hydrogen and CCUS through molecule exchange. We optimize system configurations using an hourly-resolved, process-based model incorporating operational flexibility, and explore integrated strategies for plant-level deployment and CO2 source-sink matching across China. We find that co-production could reduce CO2 abatement costs to USD 41-53 per tonne by 2035, significantly lower than approximately USD 75 for standalone cement CCUS and over USD 120 for standalone renewable-based methanol. Co-production is preferentially deployed at cement plants in renewable-rich regions, potentially reshaping national CO2 infrastructure planning. This hydrogen-CCUS coupling paradigm could accelerate industrial decarbonization and scaling for other applications.

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Yuezhang He, Hongxi Luo, Yuancheng Lin, Carl J. Talsma, Anna Li, Zhenqian Wang, Yujuan Fang, Pei Liu, Jesse D. Jenkins, Eric Larson, Zheng Li. 2025-09-17. Scaling green hydrogen and CCUS via cement-methanol co-production in China. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.13674

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