Metal requirements of low-carbon power generation

René Kleijn, Ester van der Voet, Gert Jan Kramer, Lauran van Oers and Coen van der Giesen

Energy, 2011, vol. 36, issue 9, 5640-5648

Abstract: Today, almost 70% of the electricity is produced from fossil fuels and power generation accounts for over 40% of global CO2 emissions. If the targets to reduce climate change are to be met, substantial reductions in emissions are necessary. Compared to other sectors emission reductions in the power sector are relatively easy to achieve because it consists mainly of point-sources. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and the use of low-carbon alternative energy sources are the two categories of options to reduce CO2 emissions. However, for both options additional infrastructure and equipment is needed. This article compares CO2 emissions and metal requirements of different low-carbon power generation technologies on the basis of Life Cycle Assessment. We analyze the most critical output (CO2) and the most critical input (metals) in the same methodological framework. CO2 emissions and metal requirements are compared with annual global emissions and annual production for different metals. It was found that all technologies are very effective in reducing CO2 emissions. However, CCS and especially non-fossil technologies are substantially more metal intensive than existing power generation. A transition to a low-carbon based power generation would require a substantial upscaling of current mining of several metals.

Keywords: Material requirements; Electricity; Metals; LCA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (67)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544211004518
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:36:y:2011:i:9:p:5640-5648

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2011.07.003

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().