Life-Cycle Environmental Footprint Analysis of Electricity Generation Technologies

Year 2019, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 25 - 31, 23.05.2019

Figen Balo , Lutfu S.sua

Abstract

Increasing urbanization and global population,
in addition to huge economic and industrial developments have jointly led to
raised consumption of electrical. With the rise in fossil-based fuel costs and
the environmental awareness to decrease greenhouse gas emissions there is an
increasing requirement to alter away from CO2 emission creating fossil-based
fuels to new renewable power resources for electrical generation. By using Life
Cycle Assessment, this paper’s scope is to compare and evaluation the chosen
environmental effects associated with the electrical generation of the
sustainable and the fossil-based system. In this paper, the environmental
footprint that obtains from the diverse energy sources’ exploitation/use, either
renewable or conventional/fossil in the electrical generation industry, is
analyzed. Analysis of the electrical energy generation sectors depended on
diverse factors include a potency ecological effect categories’ wide vary.
Thus, the energy sources’ diverse life cycle stages used in electrical
generation are investigated. The pairwise comparison is presented for the
needed data’ derivation. For each of criteria, these comparison is applied for
deriving weights of criteria’ significance and alternatives’ relative rankings.
Each technology’s ecological effect according to all factors are calculated.
Finally, the eco-friendliest and the most environmentally damage technologies
are determined.

Keywords

Environmental footprint, electricity generation, emission, pollution

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