Life Cycle Assessment for supercritical pulverized coal power plants with post-combustion carbon capture and storage

Abstract

Environmental and technical aspects of four supercritical (SC) pulverized-coal processes with post-combustion carbon capture and storage (CCS) are evaluated in the present work. The post-combustion CCS technologies (e.g. MDEA, aqueous ammonia and Calcium Looping (CaL) are compared to the benchmark case represented by the SC pulverized coal without CCS). Some important key performance indicators (e.g. net electrical power, energy conversion efficiency, carbon capture rate, specific CO2 emissions, SPECCA) are calculated based on process modeling and simulation data. The focus of the present work lies in the environmental evaluation, using the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology, of the processes considered. The system boundaries include: i) power production from coal coupled to energy efficient CCS technologies based on post-combustion capture; ii) upstream processes such as extraction and processing of coal, limestone, solvents used post-combustion CCS, as well as power plant, coal mine, CO2 pipelines construction and commissioning and iii) downstream processes: CO2 compression, transport and storage (for the CCS case) as well as power plant, CCS units, coal mine and CO2 pipelines decommissioning. GaBi6 software was used to perform a “cradle-to-grave” LCA study, to calculate and compare different impact categories, according to CML 2001 impact assessment method. All results are reported to one MWh of net energy produced in the power plant. Discussions about the most significant environmental impact categories are reported leading to the conclusions that the introduction of the CCS technologies decreases the global warming potential (GWP) indicator, but all the other environmental categories increase with respect to the benchmark case. There is also a competition between the aqueous ammonia adsorption and CaL for some impact categories (other than GWP). The implementation of these new CCS technologies is more favorable than the traditional amine-based CO2 capture

Climate and health benefits of increasing renewable energy deployment in the United States*

“…Our model results, along with CO 2 reduction costeffectiveness, do not represent full benefit-cost analyses of individual projects. Ideally, a full benefit-cost analysis for an individual project would include: site specific generation profiles and detailed electrical dispatch model runs for RE; full health benefits and impacts of emissions changes from coal with CCS [39,46,47]; full life cycle impacts for fossil fuel use changes, including increases in the case of coal with CCS [39,[48][49][50]; impacts of captured CO 2 , especially if it is used for enhanced oil recovery [45,51]; electricity price effects [52,53], and impacts from RE manufacture and installation [54][55][56][57].…”

Techno-Economic and Environmental Evaluations of Decarbonized Fossil-Intensive Industrial Processes by Reactive Absorption & Adsorption CO2 Capture Systems

“…were calculated for the evaluated fossil-intensive industrial applications. Regarding environmental impact indicators, several Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies were performed by the authors for gasification [30], combustion [31], and iron and steel [32] but due length constraints only the carbon footprint was presented in details. The LCA results are presented in detail for one illustrative case (i.e., super-critical combustion power plant).…”

Life Cycle Environmental Impact Assessment of Circular Agriculture: A Case Study in Fuqing, China

“…The CML is a problem-oriented LCA method developed by the Center of Environmental Sciences of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. The index of CML is based on the objective of providing the best practices for midpoint indicators, and it objectively evaluates the environmental impact caused by the process of production [35].…”