An Integrated Approach to Determining the Capacity of Ecosystems to Supply Ecosystem Services into Life Cycle Assessment for a Carbon Capture System

Abstract

In the life cycle assessment (LCA) method, it is not possible to carry out an integrated sustainability analysis because the quantification of the biophysical capacity of the ecosystems to supply ecosystem services is not taken into account. This paper considers a methodological proposal connecting the flow demand of a process or system product from the technosphere and the feasibility of the ecosystem to supply based on the sink capacity. The ecosystem metabolism as an analytical framework and data from a case study of an LCA of combined heat and power (CHP) plant with and without post-combustion carbon capture (PCC) technology in Mexico were applied. Three scenarios, including water and energy depletion and climate change impact, are presented to show the types of results obtained when the process effect of operation is scaled to one year. The impact of the water–energy–carbon nexus over the natural infrastructure or ecological fund in LCA is analyzed. Further, the feasibility of the biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) from this result for Mexico is discussed. On the supply side, in the three different scenarios, the CHP plant requires between 323.4 and 516 ha to supply the required oil as stock flow and 46–134 ha to supply the required freshwater. On the sink side, 52–5,096,511 ha is necessary to sequester the total CO2 emissions. Overall, the CHP plant generates 1.9–28.8 MW/ha of electricity to fulfill its function. The CHP with PCC is the option with fewer ecosystem services required.

Special Issue on Carbon Capture and Utilization

“…However, integrated sustainable analysis is not possible within this method, as LCA does not quantify the biophysical capacity of the ecosystems to supply ecosystem services. Mora et al [9] propose a methodology for connecting a process-or system-product flow demand from the technosphere and the feasibility of the ecosystem being able to supply ecosystem services based on sink capacity. The case study was a combined heat and power (CHP) plant with and without post-combustion carbon-capture technology in Mexico.…”

Environmental Footprint Neutrality Using Methods and Tools for Natural Capital Accounting in Life Cycle Assessment

“…All these advancements necessarily require extensive amounts of data and research to develop region-specific characterization factors, which may build on the use of existing NC and ES assessment modeling tools [31,35]. In parallel, LCA studies that specifically investigate the damage on the provision of regulation and maintenance ES are still scarce in the literature, and mainly concern specific ES flows such as pollination [36,37], carbon sequestration [38,39], and freshwater ES [40,41]. Therefore, further efforts should be made to increase the number of use cases and categories of ES flows considered in LCA.…”