Historical and potential future contributions of power technologies to global warming

Abstract

Using the mathematical formalism of the Brazilian Proposal to the IPCC, we analyse eight power technologies with regard to their past and potential future contributions to global warming. Taking into account detailed bottom-up technology characteristics we define the mitigation potential of each technology in terms of avoided temperature increase by comparing a "coal-only" reference scenario and an alternative low-carbon scenario. Future mitigation potentials are mainly determined by the magnitude of installed capacity and the temporal deployment profile. A general conclusion is that early technology deployment matters, at least within a period of 50-100 years. Our results conclusively show that avoided temperature increase is a better proxy for comparing technologies with regard to their impact on climate change, and that numerous short-term comparisons based on annual or even cumulative emissions may be misleading. Thus, our results support and extend the policy relevance of the Brazilian Proposal in the sense that not only comparisons between countries, but also comparisons between technologies could be undertaken on the basis of avoided temperature increase rather than on the basis of annual emissions as is practiced today.

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power

“…Here, we examine the historical and potential future role of nuclear power with respect to prevention of air pollution-related mortality as well as GHG emissions on multiple spatial scales. Previous studies have quantified global-scale avoided GHG emissions due to nuclear power (e.g., refs and − ); however, the issue of avoided human deaths remains largely unexplored. We focus on the world as a whole, OECD Europe, and the five countries with the highest annual CO 2 emissions in the last several years.…”

Building Robust Housing Sector Policy Using the Ecological Footprint

“…The technologies considered include efficient base load coal plants; gas base load power replacing coal power; capture of CO 2 at base load power plant (CCS coal or natural gas); and wind, solar photovoltaic (PV), nuclear, biomass, hydro, concentrated solar power (CSP), and geothermal replacing coal power. We calculated the carbon intensity of the electricity sector by applying emission factors for each stationary energy technology using data from Lenzen and Schaeffer [31] and adjusting for each SRES scenario [32] as detailed in Table 2. …”

Comparative LCA of technology improvement opportunities for a 1.5-MW wind turbine in the context of an onshore wind farm

“…In addition, there are also other studies focused on futureinclined analysis as for instance Pehnt et al (2008), Arvesen and Hertwich (2011), Lenzen and Schaeffer (2012). They all focused on scenario-based assessment analysed towards a future time frame.…”

“…The results show that emissions avoided by wind energy exceed emissions caused by wind energy. In Lenzen and Schaeffer (2012), avoided and caused climate change impacts of eight energy technologies are analysed towards year 2100. The main aim was to show differences between temperaturebased indicators for climate change mitigation potential and emissions.…”