CASE STUDY
Carbon Capture LCA for DOE Grant
We conducted an LCA on a natural gas power plant with new carbon capture technology and compared it to the same plant without the technology.
THE CLIENT’S CHALLENGE
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) offered several funding opportunities to incentivize the development of carbon capture technology on natural gas power plants and industrial point sources. Our client, a company who is developing an amine monolith carbon capture technology to extract the CO2 from the flue gas of a natural gas power plant, was interested in applying for a grant from FECM to help develop their carbon capture technology. However, in order to qualify, they needed a life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify the environmental impacts of electricity produced with their proposed carbon capture technology.
OUR SOLUTION
Our project team went to work conducting an LCA for the power plant outfitted with the client’s proposed carbon capture technology. ISO 14040/14044 standards were used as the basis for calculation of the environmental impacts. The LCA’s scope was ‘cradle-to-delivered electricity,’ and covered the following:
Natural gas power plant construction and operation, including extraction and processing of raw materials and use of natural gas and electricity
Carbon capture system construction, including extraction and processing of raw materials
Carbon capture system operation, including extraction and processing of raw materials, use of natural gas and electricity, production, packaging, transportation, and use of new and regenerated adsorbent and other materials
Stack emissions: CO2 emissions from the carbon capture system’s vent gas
Capturing and sequestering carbon in a saline aquifer, never to be released
In contrast, the scope of the comparative LCA that measured the footprint of electricity produced by a natural gas power plant without the use of carbon capture technology covered:
Natural gas power plant construction and operation, including extraction and processing of raw materials and use of natural gas and electricity
Stack emissions: CO2 emissions from the power plant’s flue gas
Conformance with NETL Guidance & Industry Standards
This project required working in conformance with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) guidance, which required using some data from sources not typically used in the industry. Therefore, we processed and refined the data to keep the LCA in-line with industry best practices and competing carbon capture technology studies.
Key Findings
The results of our LCA showed that installing our client’s carbon capture system on a natural gas power plant would significantly lower the environmental impact of the electricity generated at that plant. Also, the increase in power demand by the carbon capture system did not significantly change the plant’s environmental impact or global warming potential (GWP).
OUR IMPACT
Due to our experience conducting LCAs, knowledge of carbon capture technology, and prior project work with NETL, we conducted the analysis and delivered the report well before the deadline very confident in the report and conclusion. Our LCA report highlighted the substantial environmental benefits and strategic implications of adopting carbon capture technology in power plants.