Carbon footprint of water reuse and desalination: a review of greenhouse gas emissions and estimation tools

Cornejo, Pablo K.; Santana, Mark V.E.; Hokanson, David R.; Mihelcic, James R.; Zhang, Qiong

doi:10.2166/wrd.2014.058

Cited by 103 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The environmental impact of water desalination has been focused on theoretical and scenario analyses [5]. Cornejo et al [6] found that reverse osmosis (RO) technologies have lower GHG emissions than thermal desalination technologies. The estimated GHG emissions footprint of seawater RO desalination (0.4-6.7 kg CO 2eq /m 3 ) is generally larger than brackish water RO desalination (0.4-2.5 kg CO 2eq /m 3 ) and water reuse systems (0.1-2.4 kg CO 2eq /m 3 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing the Energy Consumption, GHG Emission, and Cost of Seawater Desalination in China

et al. 2019

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Seawater desalination is considered a technique with high water supply potential and has become an emerging alternative for freshwater supply in China. The increase of the capacity also increases energy consumption and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, which has not been well investigated in studies. This study has analyzed the current development of seawater desalination in China, including the capacity, distribution, processes, as well as the desalted water use. Energy consumption and GHG emissions of overall desalination in China, as well as for the provinces, are calculated covering the period of 2006–2016. The unit product cost of seawater desalination plants specifying processes is also estimated. The results showed that 1) The installed capacity maintained increased from 2006 to 2016, and reverse osmosis is the major process used for seawater desalination in China. 2) The energy consumption increased from 81 MWh/y to 1,561 MWh/y during the 11 years. The overall GHG emission increase from 85 Mt CO2eq/y to 1,628 Mt CO2eq/y. Tianjin had the largest GHG emissions, following are Hebei and Shandong, with emissions of 4.1 Mt CO2eq/y, 2.2 Mt CO2eq/y. and 1.0 Mt CO2eq/y. 3) The unit product cost of seawater desalination is higher than other water supply alternatives, and it differentiates the desalination processes. The average unit product cost of the reverse osmosis process is 0.96 USD and 2.5 USD for the multiple-effect distillation process. The potential for future works should specify different energy forms, e.g. heat and power. Alternatives of process integration should be investigated—e.g. efficiency of using the energy, heat integration, and renewables in water desalination, as well as the utilization of total site heat integration.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing the Energy Consumption, GHG Emission, and Cost of Seawater Desalination in China

et al. 2019

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“…The ve phases of the evaluated SWRO process are seawater pumping and intake, pretreatment, reverse osmosis operation, post treatment and water storage and distribution. Figure 3 shows the total carbon footprint of 3.5 × 10 −2 kg CO 2 -eq/year, with the assumption that the contribution was not signi cant and way smaller than the reported values of 1.599-5.63 kg CO 2 -eq for Spain, 2.208-7.46 kg CO 2 -eq for Israel, 2.562 kg CO 2 -eq for China, and 2.1-3.6 kg CO 2 -eq for Singapore (Pablo et al 2014;Jiahong Liu et al 2015;Biswas et al 2016;Xuexiu Jia et al 2019). The other contributing factors are plant capacity, adaptation of technology, fuel type, and the selection of attribute calculation in scopes 1, 2, and 3.…”

Section: C0 2-eq Emissions In the Operation Processmentioning

confidence: 64%

“…In addition, the CF results can be meaningful if this approach is integrated with other indicators and attributes such as energy and water. Also, several carbon footprint evaluation instruments such as WESTWeb model, CHEApet, Simulation Platform No.2 (BSM2G), Johnston tools, LCA hybrid tools and other equipment can estimate more accurately (Pablo et al 2014). As mentioned earlier, SWRO sustainability is related to the alternative selection to minimise environmental impact, and the integration between the different sources of energy with a renewable energy was fundamentally selected to meet the objective.…”

Section: Relationship Between Limitations Strategies and Adaptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Reduction of Carbon Burden for Senak Seawater Desalination Plant in Malaysia

Ghani

Nazaran

Ali

et al. 2020

Preprint

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PurposeCarbon footprint calculation is one of the approaches available in the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) system, which can be considered as a decision support tool for environmental sustainability management. Hence, this purpose of this study is to examine the potential contribution of the product, namely water through carbon footprint measurement. Seawater has been selected as the source for clean water transformation in Senak due to its ability to meet the growing demands of the local population and its ability to be recycled in the long term.MethodsIn this study, carbon footprint assessment was used to investigate seawater production systems from a desalination plant in Senok, Kelantan, Malaysia. Three stages of the desalination plant processing system have been investigated and the inventory database has been developed using the relevant model framework. The LCA method, in accordance with ISO14040-43 guidelines has been simplified with working unit selected is 1 per cubic meter of treated water produced from a salt water desalination source.Results and discussionOverall, the results of the study indicate that the Revolutionary Osmotic (RO) technology that has been used in the desalination plant in the study area is one of the best options to meet the demands of the environmental sustainability agenda (SDGs). This is due to a lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emission of about 3.5 × 10−2 kg of CO2 eq per m3/year that has been recorded for the entire operation of the system. The other pollutants involved the emission of NOx and Sox, which were considered to be insignificant. However, if the plant continues to operate completely on fossil fuel for the next 25 years, the emission is expected to affect the health of the community.ConclusionsSeveral factors that influence important errors in carbon footprint decisions such as the lack of EIA reporting data and the literature on carbon footprint in the Malaysian scenario. The total dependency of electrical source for SWRO process of fossil fuel is the most critical factor in the carbon footprint issue in this study. These findings can be used to develop a carbon footprint model that can commercialise carbon tax, carbon economy capital, energy security assurance, and standard carbon regulation and legislation in the context of local desalination projects.

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“…The study also assessed the performance of the local utility's centralized wastewater treatment plant, which was found to be significantly more efficient than the LM. The life-cycle approach was adopted for cases in which the specification of the environmental variable required a systemic scope [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Morera et al [4] applied the Water Footprint to assess the consumption of water resources in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Performance of Effluent Conditioning Systems for Reuse in Oil Refining Plants: A Case Study in Brazil

et al. 2019

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This study aims to evaluate the environmental and energy effects of the reuse of 1.0 m³ of water in a cooling tower obtained from an oil refinery effluent. An arrangement comprising reverse osmosis (RO), evaporation (EV), and crystallization (CR) was created for water desalination. Six process routes were evaluated; for this purpose, each of them was converted into an specific scenario of analysis: S1: pre-treatment with Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) + RO + EV (multi-effect distillation) + CR; S2: S1 with pre-treatment by BaSO4; S3: with Ca(OH)2/CaCO3/HCl; S4: S3 with waste heat to supply the thermal demand of EV; S5: S3 with steam recompression in EV; and, S6: S3 with HNO3 in place of HCl. The analysis was carried out by attributional LCA for primary energy demand (PED) and global warming (GW) impacts. The comparison was carried out for a reference flow (RF) of: add 1.0 m3 of reused water to a cooling tower with quality to proper functioning of this equipment. S4 presented the best performance among the analyzed possibilities (PED: 11.9 MJ/RF; and GW: 720 gCO2,eq/RF). However, dependence on other refinery sectors makes it inadvisable as a regular treatment option. Thus, S5 appears as the lowest impact scenario in the series (PED: 17.2 MJ/RF; and GW: 1.24 kgCO2,eq/RF), given the pre-treatment technique of RO-fed effluent, and the exclusive use of steam recompression to meet total EV energy demands. Finally, an intrinsic correlation was identified between RO water recovery efficiency and the accumulated PED and GW impacts on the arrangements that operate with heat and electricity.

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Carbon footprint of water reuse and desalination: a review of greenhouse gas emissions and estimation tools

Cited by 103 publications

References 3 publications

Analyzing the Energy Consumption, GHG Emission, and Cost of Seawater Desalination in China

Analyzing the Energy Consumption, GHG Emission, and Cost of Seawater Desalination in China

Potential Reduction of Carbon Burden for Senak Seawater Desalination Plant in Malaysia

Environmental Performance of Effluent Conditioning Systems for Reuse in Oil Refining Plants: A Case Study in Brazil

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