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Identifying/Quantifying Environmental Trade-offs Inherent in GHG Reduction Strategies for Coal-Fired Power. Environmental Science and Technology
Citation:
Schivley, G., W. Ingwersen, J. Marriott, T. Hawkins, AND T. Skone. Identifying/Quantifying Environmental Trade-offs Inherent in GHG Reduction Strategies for Coal-Fired Power. Environmental Science and Technology. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, 49(13):7562-7570, (2015).
Impact/Purpose:
Our goal in this study is to examine whether improvement in coal-fired power plant technology and cofiring of biomass, either separately or combined, can reduce the climate impact of coal-fired power production below current U.S. coal fleet performance without incurring additional impacts to human health and air and water quality.
Description:
Improvements to coal power plant technology and the co-fired combustion of biomass promise direct greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions for existing coal-fired power plants. Questions remain as to what the reduction potentials are from a life cycle perspective and if it will result in unintended increases in impacts to air and water quality and human health. This study provides a unique analysis of the potential environmental impact reductions from upgrading existing sub-critical pulverized coal power plants to increase their efficiency, improve environmental controls, allow for co-firing biomass, and export steam for industrial use. The climate impacts are examined in both a traditional - 100 year GWP - method and a time series analysis that accounts for emission and uptake timing over the life of the power plant. Compared to fleet average pulverized bed boilers (33% efficiency), we find that circulating fluidized bed boilers (39% efficiency) may provide GHG reductions of about 13% when using 100% coal and reductions of about 20% to 37% when co-firing with 30% biomass. Additional greenhouse gas reductions from combined heat and power are minimal if the steam co-product displaces steam from an efficient natural gas boiler. These upgrades and co-firing biomass can also reduce other life cycle impacts, although there may be increased impacts to water quality (eutrophication) when using biomass from an intensely cultivated source. Climate change impacts are sensitive to the timing of emissions and carbon sequestration as well as the time horizon over which impacts are considered, particularly for long growth woody biomass.
