Life Cycle Assessment of Hypothetical Canadian Pre-Combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture Process with Air Pollutants Dispersion and Health Risks Assessment

Download or read book Life Cycle Assessment of Hypothetical Canadian Pre-Combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture Process with Air Pollutants Dispersion and Health Risks Assessment written by Lakkana Piewkhaow and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The methodology of life cycle assessment has been applied in order to evaluate the environmental performance of the Saskatchewan lignite Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) based electricity generation with and without pre-combustion carbon dioxide (CO2) capture process from a full life cycle perspective. The emphasis is put on environmental performance of the comparison between IGCC systems (with and without CO2 capture) and the competing lignite pulverized coal electricity generating station in order to reveal which technology offers the most positive environmental effects. Moreover, ambient air pollutant modeling, the human health benefit (health outcomes) and human health risk assessment are also conducted to determine the impact on human health contributed by the level of pollutants emitted from four different electricity generating stations. This study assumes that all stations are located in Estevan. The results showed a significant reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by applying both post-combustion and pre-combustion CO2 capture process. The GHG emissions were found to be reduced by 27%-86%, IGCC systems were found to compare favorably to pulverized coal systems. However, in other environmental impacts categories, some of them have multiple environmental trade-offs depending on the capture technology. In the case of post-combustion capture, it was observed that the environmental impact was shifted from the air compartment to the soil and water compartments. IGCC systems, on the other hand, showed the same tendency with the conventional coal-fired electricity generation systems, but to a lower degree. This is because the IGCC system is a cleaner technology which produces lower pollutant emission levels from the electricity generating station process, thus the benefits of capture are reduced on a comparative basis. The health benefits assessment indicated that by implementing IGCC and IGCC with CO2 capture will result in significant health benefits for people living in the Estevan area and the magnitude of the benefit will also increase substantially by 2020. However, results indicated the reduction in health benefits when implementing a post combustion CO2 capture process to conventional coal-fired electricity generating station. The reduction in health benefits on "PC with Capture" scenario was mainly due to the high level of PM2.5 air concentration due to implementing post combustion CO2 capture process. The frequency of negative health impacts due to air pollution emitted from IGCC and IGCC with pre-combustion capture plant was predicted to be reduced by the improvement in air quality. The results from health risk assessment (HRA) showed no possibility of developing either cancer or non-cancer health impacts from IGCC systems. For both conventional coal-fired pulverized electricity generating stations with and without post-combustion CO2 capture process, the results of carcinogenic health risk showed a potential for adverse health effects existing during short-term dispersion of Chromium whereas long-term dispersion showed an acceptable level of pollutant concentration. For non-carcinogenic health risk on both conventional coal-fired pulverized electricity generating stations, the results indicate that the heavy metals dispersions were unlikely to cause health risk to population residing within 10 km (area 20 km x 20 km) radius from the studied area.