This
paper integrated the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach
with a geographical information system (GIS) in order to compare greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions in the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process, utilizing
carbon dioxide (CO2) from three industrial pathways. Pathway
1 is a corn-based ethanol plant with carbon capture and sequestration
(CCS), while pathways 2 and 3 are coal-fired and natural gas-fired
power plants, respectively, with amine-based postcombustion CCS technology.
The pathways were compared to a conventional crude recovery, transport,
refinement, and end-use combustion baseline, which had net GHG emissions
of 0.47 tCO2-e/bbl. Overall, net GHG emissions from pathways
1, 2, and 3 were lower than in the baseline case. In this LCA study,
the system expansion approach was applied and the results indicated
that ethanol-based CCS-EOR was notably the better alternative. However,
the CO2 supply from ethanol plants is limited; they would
have the capacity to produce only about 25 000 bbl/d, compared
to 1.1 Mbbl/d in pathway 2 and 125 000 bbl/d in pathway 3.
Among the system processes assessed, the CO2 injection
system process has the greatest influence on the LCA results, where
the magnitude of the reduction in GHGs depends on each site’s
specific crude recovery rate and that determines the extent of the
displacement credits for coproducts. This finding indicates that crude
oil with lower carbon intensity can be produced from EOR reservoirs
that are less efficient in terms of crude recovered per ton of CO2 injected. However, it should be acknowledged that using less
efficient reservoirs would be associated with greater CO2 supply which has a parasitic energy requirement and would in turn
entail a higher cost burden.
In Kuwait, electricity is generated from two primary sources, heavy fuel combustion and natural gas combustion. As Kuwait relies mainly on petroleum-based products for electricity generation, identifying and understanding the environmental and energy trade-off of such operations should be carefully investigated. The life cycle assessment (LCA) tool is applied to identify the potential environmental impacts and energy performance of electricity generation under three scenarios, by considering the material flow in various stages involved such as raw-material extraction, transportation, and operations. The three scenarios investigated represent current and futuristic electricity grid mixes. The analysis of four indicators consists of two environmental and two energy indicators per one kWh of the electricity generated. The environmental indicators examined are global warming potential (GWP) and water consumption (WC), whereas the energy indicators target cumulative energy demand (CED) and net energy ratio (NER). Results indicate that one kWh of electricity generated would have a GWP (0.63-0.77) kg CO2-eq, mainly from the fuel combustion process, WC (0.0013-0.0015) m3 of water, about 68% from cooling processes, CED (9.9-10.7) MJ, and NER (0.34-0.39). The variation in results depends on the scenario investigated. It can be observed from the analysis that introducing solar photovoltaic and wind to the electricity grid mix improves the environmental and energy performance of Scenarios 3, where 15% of the electricity generated from renewables (10% solar PV and 5% wind) corresponds to a further decrease in LCA results.
The net benefits and public acceptance for a proposed reform to the current subsidization of energy in the State of Kuwait was investigated in this study. The proposed subsidization suggests that the government pays the consumers the subsidization cost in advance and in exchange for raising the subsidized tariffs to full price. The consumption will likely be reduced by a rate equals the over consumption due to the current subsidized tariffs in relative to the income. The net benefits is expected to be maximized and shifted to a pseudo-equilibrium point where both the governments and the consumers will be better off financially. The public acceptance toward the proposed strategy was examined using 274 voluntarily one-to-one interviews for gasoline and 121 for electricity and water. Also, a utilities meters reading program was conducted on 90 houses out of the 121 interviews for utilities. The interviews for gasoline and utilities indicated 57% and 66% of the respondents see no equity in the current subsidization, 55% and 80% admitted to overuse, and 11% and 21% averages of the over consumptions, and 67% and 66% of the respondents were willing to adopt the new strategy. The consumer is expected to save 912 USD/year from gasoline, and 8,198 USD/year from utilities. The estimated net benefits is 5,841 million USD annually with 62% attributed to utilities benefits and 38% to gasoline benefits.
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