A guide to life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electric supply technologies

Electricity generation is a key contributor to global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), NOx and SO2 and their related environmental impact. A critical review of 167 case studies involving the life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation based on hard coal, lignite, natural gas, oil, nuclear, biomass, hydroelectric, solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind was carried out to identify ranges of emission data for GHG, NOx and SO2 related to individual technologies. It was shown that GHG emissions could not be used as a single indicator to represent the environmental performance of a system or technology. Emission data were evaluated with respect to three life cycle phases (fuel provision, plant operation, and infrastructure). Direct emissions from plant operation represented the majority of the life cycle emissions for fossil fuel technologies, whereas fuel provision represented the largest contribution for biomass technologies (71% for GHG, 54% for NOx and 61% for SO2) and nuclear power (60% for GHG, 82% for NOx and 92% for SO2); infrastructures provided the highest impact for renewables. These data indicated that all three phases should be included for completeness and to avoid problem shifting. The most critical methodological aspects in relation to LCA studies were identified as follows: definition of the functional unit, the LCA method employed (e.g., IOA, PCA and hybrid), the emission allocation principle and/or system boundary expansion. The most important technological aspects were identified as follows: the energy recovery efficiency and the flue gas cleaning system for fossil fuel technologies; the electricity mix used during both the manufacturing and the construction phases for nuclear and renewable technologies; and the type, quality and origin of feedstock, as well as the amount and type of co-products, for biomass-based systems. This review demonstrates that the variability of existing LCA results for electricity generation can give rise to conflicting decisions regarding the environmental consequences of implementing new technologies.

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Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations

Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power: A critical survey

https://www.laka.org/docu/boeken/pdf/6-01-2-15-45.pdf

Life cycle energy and greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear energy: A review

Comprehensive review on the techno-economics of sustainable large-scale clean hydrogen production

Birth to death analysis of the energy payback ratio and CO2 gas emission rates from coal, fission, wind, and DT-fusion electrical power plants

This paper updates a life-cycle net energy analysis and carbon dioxide emissions analysis of three Midwestern utility-scale wind systems Both the Energy Payback Ratio (EPR) and CO2 analysis results provide useful data for policy discussions regarding an efficient and low-carbon energy mix The EPR is the amount of electrical energy produced for the lifetime of the power plant divided by the total amount of energy required to procure and transport the materials, build, operate, and decommission the power plants The CO2 analysis for each power plant was calculated from the life-cycle energy input data A previous study also analyzed coal and nuclear fission power plants At the time of that study, two of the three wind systems had less than a full year of generation data to project the life-cycle energy production This study updates the analysis of three wind systems with an additional four to eight years of operating data The EPR for the utility-scale wind systems ranges from a low of 11 for a two-turbine system in Wisconsin to 28 for a 143-turbine system in southwestern Minnesota The EPR is 11 for coal, 25 for fission with gas centrifuge enriched uranium and 7 for gaseous diffusion enriched uranium The normalized CO2 emissions, in tonnes of CO2 per GWeh, ranges from 14 to 33 for the wind systems, 974 for coal, and 10 and 34 for nuclear fission using gas centrifuge and gaseous diffusion enriched uranium, respectively

Scott W. White

Papers

Birth to death analysis of the energy payback ratio and CO2 gas emission rates from coal, fission, wind, and DT-fusion electrical power plants

Net energy payback and CO2 emissions from three midwestern wind farms: An update

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