Life Cycle Assessment of a Natural Gas Combined Cycle Power Generation System

Spath, Pamela L.; Mann, Margaret

doi:10.2172/776930

Cited by 170 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Upstream processes potentially having relevant impacts include fuel provision and the commissioning and decommissioning of plants. Few authors consider fuel provision negligible with regards to GHG emissions (e.g., [67]), while others depict it as important (e.g., [16,42,43,53,72,73]), in particular for emissions other than GHG. For example, based on the data in Figure 1, fuel provision accounts for on average 71% and 60% of the GHG emissions estimated for biomass and nuclear power plants, respectively.…”

Section: Contributions From Upstream Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations

Turconi

Boldrin

Astrup

2013

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

600

300

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Electricity generation is a key contributor to global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), NO x and SO 2 and their related environmental impact. A critical review of 167 case studies involving the life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation based on hard coal, lignite, natural gas, oil, nuclear, biomass, hydroelectric, solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind was carried out to identify ranges of emission data for GHG, NO x and SO 2 related to individual technologies. It was shown that GHG emissions could not be used as a single indicator to represent the environmental performance of a system or technology. Emission data were evaluated with respect to three life cycle phases (fuel provision, plant operation, and infrastructure). Direct emissions from plant operation represented the majority of the life cycle emissions for fossil fuel technologies, whereas fuel provision represented the largest contribution for biomass technologies (71% for GHG, 54% for NO x and 61% for SO 2 ) and nuclear power (60% for GHG, 82% for NO x and 92% for SO 2 ); infrastructures provided the highest impact for renewables. These data indicated that all three phases should be included for completeness and to avoid problem shifting. The most critical methodological aspects in relation to LCA studies were identified as follows: definition of the functional unit, the LCA method employed (e.g., IOA, PCA and hybrid), the emission allocation principle and/or system boundary expansion. The most important technological aspects were identified as follows: the energy recovery efficiency and the flue gas cleaning system for fossil fuel technologies; the electricity mix used during both the manufacturing and the construction phases for nuclear and renewable technologies; and the type, quality and origin of feedstock, as well as the amount and type of co-products, for biomass-based systems. This review demonstrates that the variability of existing LCA results for electricity generation can give rise to conflicting decisions regarding the environmental consequences of implementing new technologies.

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Section: Contributions From Upstream Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations

Turconi

Boldrin

Astrup

2013

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

600

300

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“…1 The term "clean fueled" is used in this section to designate the following power generator attributes: (1) fuel plus energy conversion technology that has substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions than current technologies such as coal, (2) fuel plus energy conversion technology that has low to zero pollutant emissions that will improve air quality and public health, and (3) 6 An ancillary service is anything that supports the transmission of electricity from its generation site to the customer. Services may include load regulation, spinning reserve, non-spinning reserve, replacement reserve and voltage support.…”

Section: Competing Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Natural Gas Combined Cycle -comprised of three main components of a gas turbine (Brayton cycle that includes compressor, combustor and turbine), a steam turbine (operating on the Rankine cycle), and a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) that integrates the two cycles together by generating steam from the upstream gas turbine exhaust. At the central plant scale NGCC plants are capable of high fuel-to-electricity efficiency of between 50-60% and ultra-low criteria pollutant emissions when integrated with a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) emissions clean up system [1,2].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Chapter 5. Assessing the Need for High Impact Technology Research, Development & Deployment for Mitigating Climate Change

et al. 2016

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Technology is a centrally important component of all strategies to mitigate climate change. As such, it encompasses a multi-dimensional space that is far too large to be fully addressed in this brief chapter. Consequently, we have elected to focus on a subset of topics that we believe have the potential for substantial impact. As researchers, we have also narrowed our focus to address applied research, development and deployment issues and omit basic research topics that have a longer-term impact. This handful of topics also omits technologies that we deem to be relatively mature, such as solar photovoltaics and wind turbines, even though we acknowledge that additional research could further reduce costs and enhance performance. These and other mature technologies such as transportation are discussed in Chapter 6.This report and the related Summit Conference are an outgrowth of the University of California President's Carbon Neutrality Initiative, and consequently we are strongly motivated by the special demands of this ambitious goal, as we are also motivated by the corresponding goals for the State of California, the nation and the world. The unique feature of the UC Carbon Neutrality Initiative is the quest to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 at all ten 10 campuses. It should be emphasized that a zero emission target is enormously demanding and requires careful strategic planning to arrive at a mix of technologies, policies, and behavioral measures, as well as highly effective communication -all of which are far more challenging than reducing emissions by some 40% or even 80%. Each campus has a unique set of requirements based on its current energy and emissions. Factors such as a local climate, dependence on cogeneration, access to wholesale electricity markets, and whether a medical school is included shape the specific challenges of the campuses, each of which is a "living laboratory" setting a model for others to learn and adopt.An additional aspect of a zero GHG emission target is the need to pay close attention to system integration -i.e., how the various elements of a plan to achieve carbon neutrality fit together in the most cost effective and efficient way. This optimization imposes an additional constraint, but also provides an important opportunity to capture the synergies that can arise from those choices. For example, one of the themes that has been proposed is the complete electrification of energy supplies, residential & commercial building operation, and transportation. The deployment of storage technologies such as batteries and/or hydrogen for both transportation and for load balancing of grid and distributed generation may provide some synergistic opportunities for integrating these systems that will accelerate the deployment of each. A specific example is the use of on-board batteries in electric vehicles for load balancing the electric grid. On-site residential storage as is now being developed by Tesla Motors, has the potential to accelerate the deployment of residential sol...

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“…The construction material required for the different plants is estimated using data given in earlier studies [12,26]. Scale factors are assumed to be 0.76, 0.68, 0.78 and 0.70, respectively, for BCL, GTI plants and are based on detailed analyses reported in earlier studies [10,11].…”

Section: Plant Construction Decommissioning and Disposalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, coal and natural gas based bio-oil production plant demonstrates NER in the range of 0.57- CFB circulating fluidized bed, GTI Gas Technology Institute pathways 0.67 [26,41]. In case of installing quad-generation plant has a good reduction of CO 2 emissions compare to existing plant [46].…”

Section: Comparative Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of net energy ratio and emission factor for quad-generation pathways

2014

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The conversion of biomass to four different outputs via gasification is a renewable technology that could reduce the use of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study investigates the energy aspects for a new concept of biomass based quad-generation plant producing power, heat, methanol and methane. Circulating fluidized bed gasifier and the gas technology institute (GTI) gasifier technologies are used for this quad-generation process. Two different biomass feedstocks are considered in this study. The net energy ratio for six different pathways having the range of between 1.3 and 7.2. The lowest limit corresponds to the wood chips-based power, heat, methanol and methane production pathway using GTI technology. Since more efficient alternatives exist for the generation of heat and electricity from biomass, it is argued that syngas is best used for methanol production. The aim of this study was to evaluate the energy performance, reduce GHG and acid rain precursor emission, and use of biomass for different outputs based on demand. Finally, a sensitivity analysis and a comparative study ar conducted for expected technological improvements and factors that could increase the energy performance.

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Life Cycle Assessment of a Natural Gas Combined Cycle Power Generation System

Cited by 170 publications

References 6 publications

Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations

Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations

Chapter 5. Assessing the Need for High Impact Technology Research, Development & Deployment for Mitigating Climate Change

Development of net energy ratio and emission factor for quad-generation pathways

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