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Global Climate Change - The Power Generation Challenge
Citation:
Princiotta, F. AND Dan Loughlin. Global Climate Change - The Power Generation Challenge. AWMA Mega Symposium, Baltimore, MD, August 20 - 23, 2012.
Impact/Purpose:
Expected Outputs – To assess the efficacy of mitigation approaches and their potential environmental consequences, this project will develop tools and data to assess benefits and impacts, including methods and models to determine the effectiveness, costs and benefits of strategies that reduce carbon emissions or enhance carbon removal from the atmosphere. Major outputs in the form of tailored reports will be produced for specific mitigation approaches, which will include: • Estimates of the potential reduction in atmospheric GHG concentrations and consequent effect on climate change over time. • Cost-benefit analysis to estimate net societal cost and to allow comparisons among different approaches. Comparisons will be made on the basis of dollars per unit of carbon. • Assessments of impacts and benefits to human health, ecosystems, water quality and air quality. Identifying societal impacts of climate change and benefits of mitigation approaches is needed to help inform decisions intended to protect public health and welfare. Land-based mitigation approaches generally rely on effectively managing landscapes and watersheds. For example, a large amount of carbon is sequestrated in watersheds. Poor management can release the carbon to the atmosphere. Through BMPs adopted for climate change, this line of research can lead to sustainable mitigation strategies. BMPs for enhanced carbon sequestration can also increase the resilience of watersheds to climate change and improve the efficacy of land management. This type of information will be necessary to develop effective policies and to aid state and local planning efforts. Similarly, industrial-based processes for reducing atmospheric GHG will be evaluated using a life-cycle approach, which will allow informed policy decisions at national, state and local levels.
Description:
The planet continues to warm; O.5 C from the 1970’s to the 2000’s. Also, worldwide CO2 emissions have increased at a 3% annual growth rate from 2000 to 2010. Such emissions are driven by fossil fuel combustion, especially in the power generation sector, & especially in emerging economies such as China & India. If such fossil fuel intensive activity continues, based on recent Royal Society analysis, the planet could experience 4 °C warming as early as 2065. This could yield potentially catastrophic impacts. In order to mitigate such climate change, major reductions in emissions will be necessary in all sectors. Since the power generation sector emits more CO2 than any other sector, & since power plants are large controllable sources, major reductions will be needed from this critically important sector.IEA analysis suggest that for this sector, an 80% emission reduction will be needed internationally in order to achieve 50% reduction across all the sectors by 2050. A similar analysis for the U.S. , suggests that greater than a 90% reduction may be necessary to achieve an overall national reduction of 50% by 2050. Also, in light of the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power appears to be a less viable mitigation option than it was before the disaster. This suggests that Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) technology will be increasingly important, if coal & natural gas are to continue to provide base load power in a carbon constrained world in the decades ahead.