The petroleum coke gasification integrated gasification combined cycle power plant (petcoke-IGCC) is a promising avenue for disposal of the ever-growing amount of stockpiled petroleum coke. In this work, we present a novel techno-economic and life cycle assessment of the process operated with carbon capture and sequestration. The proposed petcoke-to-electricity plant is designed and simulated in Aspen Plus v10. The proposed power plant was compared against coal integrated gasification combined cycle (coal-IGCC) and supercritical pulverized coal power plants operated with carbon capture and sequestration. The results showed that although the efficiency of the coal-IGCC plant is higher than the petcoke-IGCC plant, the higher energy density of the petcoke and lower resource costs were such that the levelized cost of electricity of petcoke-IGCC was lower than coal-IGCC. Furthermore, the feed flow rate of petcoke to the petcoke-IGCC process is approximately 15% lower than the coal feed rate... [more]

This presentation makes the case for the development of a new ISO standard for conduction eco-technoeconomic analyses (eTEAs) within the field of energy systems engineering and chemical process systems engineering. The talk provides a motivating example of a recent study that showed how standardization of eTEAs made it possible to make fair comparisons between different types of power plants using carbon capture and sequestration by using eTEAs reported in the literature that have been converted to certain standards. That lead to informed decisions which were not possible without standardization methods, because it major variables are controlled such that analyses can focus on the value of the process concept itself rather than external factors like size, financing, and case-specific assumptions. Then, the talk outlines how the proposed ISO standards would work, their goals and scope, examples of standard practices, methods, and assumptions that could be used and what they might look l... [more]

This work investigates the environmental and economic performances of a membrane reactor for hydrogen production from raw biogas. Potential benefits of the innovative technology are compared against reference hydrogen production processes based on steam (or autothermal) reforming, water gas shift reactors and a pressure swing adsorption unit. Both biogas produced by landfill and anaerobic digestion are considered to evaluate the impact of biogas composition. Starting from the thermodynamic results, the environmental analysis is carried out using environmental Life cycle assessment (LCA). Results show that the adoption of the membrane reactor increases the system efficiency by more than 20 percentage points with respect to the reference cases. LCA analysis shows that the innovative BIONICO system performs better than reference systems when biogas becomes a limiting factor for hydrogen production to satisfy market demand, as a higher biogas conversion efficiency can potentially substitut... [more]

With the rapid increase in production of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and environmental issues arising around the world, cathode materials, as the key component of all LIBs, especially need to be environmentally sustainable. However, a variety of life cycle assessment (LCA) methods increase the difficulty of environmental sustainability assessment. Three authoritative LCAs, IMPACT 2002+, Eco-indicator 99(EI-99), and ReCiPe, are used to assess three traditional marketization cathode materials, compared with a new cathode model, FeF₃(H₂O)₃/C. They all show that four cathode models are ranked by a descending sequence of environmental sustainable potential: FeF₃(H₂O)₃/C, LiFe0.98Mn0.02PO₄/C, LiFePO₄/C, and LiCoO₂/C in total values. Human health is a common issue regarding these four cathode materials. Lithium is the main contributor to the environmental impact of the latter three cathode materials. At the midpoint level in different LCAs, the toxicity and land issues for LiCoO₂/C, the non-... [more]

One of the largest engineering challenges of our time is finding technical solutions that permit the use of our energy resources in a sustainable way. In order to achieve meaningful and positive change, new energy systems must adhere to the triple bottom line of sustainability. This means that new technical solutions must be economically, socio-politically, and environmentally sustainable, such that they can be rapidly adopted and accepted. The engineering literature is full of a great many technical proposals for new energy systems, but it turns out to be quite hard to objectively look at them all, see through the hype, and decide which are the best and most promising technologies in which to invest our research and development dollars. In this talk, I will present a case study with the results of our recent meta-study covering over 100 candidate electricity generation systems with carbon dioxide capture, in order to determine which are the most promising classes of technologies. I wi... [more]

In this paper, the environmental and economic impacts of the life cycle of an advanced lithium based energy storage system (ESS) for a battery electric vehicle are assessed. The methodology followed to perform the study is a Multiregional Input⁻Output (MRIO) analysis, with a world IO table that combines detailed information on national production activities and international trade data for 40 countries and a region called Rest of the World. The life cycle stages considered in the study are manufacturing, use and recycling. The functional unit is one ESS with a 150,000 km lifetime. The results of the MRIO analysis show the stimulation that the life cycle of the EES has in the economy, in terms of production of goods and services. The manufacturing is the life cycle stage with the highest environmental load for all the impact categories assessed. The geographical resolution of the results show the relevance that some countries may have in the environmental performance of the assessed pro... [more]

The construction of two marine bulk terminals in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States are currently under review and would open up additional thermal coal exports to Asia on the order of almost 100 million additional tonnes per year. The major exporters of coal to Asian markets include Indonesia and Australia. This life cycle analysis (LCA) seeks to understand the role of transportation and mining in the cradle-to-busbar environmental impacts of coal exports from the Powder River Basin (PRB) to Asian countries, when compared to the competitor countries. This LCA shows that: (1) the most significant greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts in the cradle-to-busbar life cycle of coal for power generation come from the combustion of coal in a power plant, even when 90% carbon capture is applied; (2) for non-GHG air impacts, power plant combustion impacts are less dominant and variations in upstream impacts (mining and transportation) are more important; and (3) when comparing impacts betw... [more]

The combustion of fossil fuels in the transport sector leads to an aggravation of the air quality along city roads and highways. Urban air quality is a serious problem nowadays as the number of vehicles increases on a yearly basis. With stricter Euro emission regulations, vehicle manufacturers are not meeting the imposed limits and are also disregarding the non-exhaust emissions. This paper highlights the relevance of non-exhaust emissions of passenger vehicles, both conventional (diesel and petrol) or electric vehicles (EV), on air quality levels in an urban environment in Belgium. An environmental life cycle assessment was carried out based on a real-world emission model for passenger cars and fuel refinery data. A cut-off was applied to the models to highlight what emissions, both from the refinery to the exhaust and electricity production for EV, do actually occur within Belgium’s borders. Results show that not much progress has been made from Euro 4 to 6 for conventional vehicles.... [more]

Turkey’s electricity mix is dominated by fossil fuels, but the country has ambitious future targets for renewable and nuclear energy. At present, environmental impacts of electricity generation in Turkey are unknown so this paper represents a first attempt to fill this knowledge gap. Taking a life cycle approach, the study considers eleven impacts from electricity generation over the period 1990⁻2014. All 516 power plants currently operational in Turkey are assessed: lignite, hard coal, natural gas, hydro, onshore wind and geothermal. The results show that the annual impacts from electricity have been going up steadily over the period, increasing by 2⁻9 times, with the global warming potential being higher by a factor of five. This is due to a four-fold increase in electricity demand and a growing share of fossil fuels. The impact trends per unit of electricity generated differ from those for the annual impacts, with only four impacts being higher today than in 1990, including the glob... [more]

A life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was used to evaluate the cumulative energy demand and the related environmental impact of three large-power stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) irrigation systems ranging from 40 kWp to 360 kWp. The novelty of this analysis is the large power of these systems as the literature up to now is restricted to modeled PV pumping systems scenarios or small power plants, where the size can be a critical factor for energy and environmental issues. The analysis shows that the yearly embodied energy per unit of PV power ranged from 1306 MJ/kWp to 1199 MJ/kWp depending of the PV generator size. Similarly, the related yearly carbon dioxide impacts ranged from 72.6 to 79.8 kg CO₂e/kWp. The production of PV modules accounted for the main portion (about 80%) of the primary energy embodied into the PV irrigation system (PVIS). The outcomes of the study also show an inverse trend of the energy and carbon payback times respect to the PV power size: In fact, energy payba... [more]