Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T03:56:49.365Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LCA-based evaluation of ecological impacts and external costs of current and new electricity and heating systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2011

Roberto Dones  and
Thomas Heck
Roberto Dones
Affiliation:
roberto.dones@psi.ch, Paul Scherrer Institute, Wuerenlingen und Villigen, Villigen PSI, N/A, N/A, Switzerland, +41.56.3102007
Thomas Heck
Affiliation:
thomas.heck@psi.ch, Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland
Get access

Abstract

A systematic study of current European electricity and heat systems performed in the frame of the Swiss LCA project ecoinvent was extended to a few new technologies and used as a basis for comparison and ranking using External Costs Assessment and one selected Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method. The energy systems include full process chains from extraction of resources through waste disposal. The external costs from airborne emissions were estimated using the most recent findings of the ExternE series on the average damage factors for Europe.

Current fossil electricity systems exhibit the highest LCIA scores as well as the highest external costs, unless greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are valued very low (sensitivity) and advanced technologies are applied. Alpine hydropower always exhibits the lowest score. Environmental performance of current renewables is generally better than fossil but LCIA ranking for wind and PV may worsen when increased importance is attributed to abiotic resource depletion. Wood cogeneration has a relatively poor score compared to other renewables. Nuclear shows generally good environmental performance, unless the high radioactive wastes are given subjectively high negative value. For heating systems, oil has higher external costs than natural gas, with conventional wood in between. External costs of heat pumps strongly depend on the origin of the electricity supplied.

Sensitivity analyses were performed for external costs to reflect uncertainties of impacts and variations in monetary valuation. Fossils remain worst performers. External costs of nuclear remain low. Using allocation by exergy, electricity by diesel and natural gas cogeneration ranks worse than oil and natural gas combined cycle, respectively, and never better than renewables or nuclear.

Keywords

environmentally benignenergetic materialphotovoltaic
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 895: Symposium G – Life-Cycle Analysis Tools for “Green” Materials and Process Selection , 2005 , 0895-G03-01
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Dones, R., Bauer, C., Bolliger, R., Burger, B., Emmenegger, M. Faist, Frischknecht, R., Heck, T., Jungbluth, N., and Röder, A., Final report ecoinvent 2000 No. 5, PSI, Villigen; Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories, Dübendorf, Switzerland, 2004. www.ecoinvent.ch.Google Scholar
2. Dones, R., Heck, T., Bauer, C., Hirschberg, S., Bickel, P., Preiss, P., Panis, L., and De Vlieger, I., “New Energy Technologies – Final Report on Work Package 6 – Release 2, July 2005.” ExternE-Pol Project, European Commission (2005). www.externe.info/expolwp6.pdf Google Scholar
3. Frischknecht, R., Jungbluth, N., Althaus, H.-J., Doka, G., Dones, R., Heck, T., Hellweg, S., Hischier, R., Nemecek, T., Rebitzer, G., and Spielmann, M. (2004a) Final report ecoinvent 2000 No. 1, Swiss Centre for Life Cycle Inventories, Dübendorf, Switzerland. www.ecoinvent.ch.Google Scholar
4. Dones, R., Heck, T., and Hirschberg, S., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Energy Systems, Comparison and Overview.” Encyclopedia of Energy, ed. Cleveland, C. (Academic Press/Elsevier, San Diego, USA, 2004) Vol.3, pp. 77–95.Google Scholar
5. Gantner, U., Jakob, M., and Hirschberg, S., PSI Report Nr. 01-12, Villigen, Switzerland, 2001. http://gabe.web.psi.ch/pubs/ Google Scholar
6. Droste-Franke, B., Schönyan, T., Preiss, P., and Bickel, P., EcoSense Lookup Edition (EcoSenseLE). IER, University of Stuttgart, Germany, 2004.Google Scholar
7. European Commission, New Elements for the Assessment of External Costs from Energy Technologies (NewExt). Brussels, European Commission, 2004.Google Scholar
8. ExternE-Pol, Externalities of Energy: Extension of accounting framework and Policy Applications. Final Technical Report, 2005. www.externe.info/expoltec.pdf Google Scholar
9. Goedkoop, M. and Spriensma, R., The Eco-indicator 99: A damage oriented method for life cycle impact assessment, PRé Consultants, Amersfoort, The Netherlands, 2000.Google Scholar
10. Tol, R. S. J. and Downing, T. E., The Marginal Costs of Climate Changing Emissions, Institute for Environmental Studies, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2000.Google Scholar
11. Hirschberg, S., Dones, R., Heck, T., Burgherr, P., Schenler, W., and Bauer, C., PSI Report Nr. 04-15, 2004. http://gabe.web.psi.ch/pubs/ Google Scholar
12. NEEDS Project, European Commission, http://www.isis-it.net/needs/ Google Scholar
13. ExternE, Externalities of Energy – Vol.10 – National Implementation, European Commission, Directorate General XII, Luxembourg (1999).Google Scholar