Life Cycle Assessment of Supercritical Coal Power Plant with Carbon Capture and Sequestration in China

Abstract

Coal has been the primary source of energy in China due to its abundance, with 55% of its consumption in power generation. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) presents an alternate solution as one of the clean coal utilization technologies being developed in China. This paper used life cycle assessment to compare environmental impacts of carbon capture and sequestration technology on a typical supercritical coal power plant. Results from the environmental impact assessment shows 71% reduction in life cycle greenhouse gas emission for CCS. Also, ionization radiation and ozone depletion potentials decrease in the case of CCS as a result of emissions from ammonia production in supercritical. It was also discovered that other environmental impact categories show significant tradeoffs for CCS due to coal supply chain, energy penalty, direct emissions, waste disposal and infrastructure of capture technology. This is evidently the case as terrestrial acidification increases by 175%, human toxicity increases by 33% and ecotoxicity show increases of 58% to 431% while eutrophication show increases of 22% to 303%. This study therefore, contributes to carbon capture and sequestration technology on supercritical power generation plant in China.