Study Confirms the Environmental Benefit of Low-Carbon Tech

Life cycle assessments (LCA) of large-scale implementation of low-carbon technologies such as renewable sources of electricity can reduce pollution from GHG emissions of fossil fuel sources, thus providing environmental benefits and mitigating climate change.

Emissions from fossil-fuel energy sources can cause exposure to particulate matter, freshwater eco-toxicity, eutrophication, and climate change.

Generally, setting up the infrastructure of renewable technology costs much higher than fossil-based power systems. Renewable technology also has higher material requirements. For example, 11-40 times more copper is needed for photovoltaic systems, and 6-14 times more iron is needed for wind power plants.

They assessed the trade-offs between increased up-front emissions due to the higher material requirements of low-carbon technologies and reduced operational emissions from long-term use. The study presents the first global and integrated life-cycle assessment (LCA) of long-term, wide-scale implementation of electricity generation from renewable sources.

Some life-cycle assessments of a single technology show that low-carbon power plants require more materials to generate per unit of power than fossil-fuel plants, which can lead to higher environmental impacts.

But what about if there is a widespread shift in low-carbon technology on a global scale? Little is known about the environmental impacts when this is the case.

Would materials and construction requirements for the infrastructure of low-carbon technology be large relative to current production capacities? Would a shift to renewable energy sources increase or decrease other types of pollution?

The study analysed the environmental impacts and resource requirements of the wide-scale global deployment of different low-carbon electricity generation technologies based on a prominent climate-change mitigation scenario and compared them with the baseline scenario.

To do this, the researchers have developed an integrated hybrid LCA model that considers the use of energy technologies in a global production system.

The study’s analysis shows that the large-scale implementation of renewable energy sources has the potential to reduce pollution and environmental impacts of electricity production. Pollution from the high material requirements of low-carbon technologies is small compared with the direct emissions of fuel-fired power plants.

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