Environmental Sustainability Of Electricity Generation: Case Study Of Lignite Combustion

Abstract

Lignite is one of the most used Turkey's energy sources for electricity generation asthere are large lignite reserves in the country. Lignite power plants are one of Tur-key's main sources of GHG emissions. Therefore, understanding the environmentalsustainability of generating electricity from lignite burning is essential for reducingenvironmental impacts. This research aims to assess the life cycle environmentalimpacts from a typical Turkish lignite power plant. In this paper, a system of the elec-tricity from the lignite power plant is presented which covers all the life cyclestages—starting from the lignite mining up to the delivery of electricity to the grid.For this work to generate 1 kWh of generated is defined as the functional unit. Theprincipal conclusion, to be drawn from this LCA of lignite power in Turkey, is that themajority of the emissions mostly originate from lignite burning to and lignite miningstages. The global warming potential associated with electricity generation from lig-nite power is estimated at 1,290 g CO2eq./kWh. The results obtained from thisstudy provide a baseline for future scenarios to reduce the environmental impactsfrom the energy sector and to build a sustainable energy policy.