1.
What is the best strategy to reduce our dependence on Carbon intensive energy? <ul><li>How do carbon emissions vary from different fuel types in reality? </li></ul><ul><li>How sensitive are these different types to carbon accounting? </li></ul>Comparison study of Nuclear, Coal and Wind Energy with respect to Carbon Accounting Samuel Chapman [email_address]

2.
Carbon Accounting of Electricity Production . <ul><li>Material based analysis (gCO 2 /kg) </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Life cycle analysis of products - Amount of materials must be known for a given project in tonnes/kilograms </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Requires inventories of all materials used in construction </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Mass of material x GHG embodiment per unit mass </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Widely used: “Inventory of Carbon & Energy” - Bath University. </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Still no standard inventory. </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Only valid for defined system boundary - process specific </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Cost based analysis (gCO 2 /£) </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Life cycle analysis of processes - Inventory establishment for lifetime monetary cost of plant. Emission factor found using GHG intensities - amount of GHG emitted from production of one unit worth </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Input-Output analysis </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Assessment of how carbon intensive an economy is </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Not case specific due to input-output tables & averaged intensities </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Study suggests gives fuller account of emissions during construction 1 </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Combination of the two </li></ul>1

3.
Sensitivity of Electricity Production methods to carbon accounting <ul><li>Using published Life Cycle Assessments to deduce sensitivities of different production methods to quantifiable assessment. </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Sensitivity = Contribution Score x Data Rating </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Where </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Contribution score : The smaller the value, the lesser the contribution to total life cycle emissions </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Data Rating : </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>1 - available, published data </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>2 - generic data, assumptions and availability of choice present </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>3 - missing data, omitted data </li></ul></ul></ul>

4.
Source: Environment product Declaration of electricity from Torness Nuclear Power Plant by AEA Technology Torness Life Cycle CO 2 Emissions The same technique was used for coal and wind energy: Based on typical UK coal plant data Based on Lewis Wind Farm project data & Danish data

5.
Sensitivity vs. Total Life Cycle Emissions Nuclear Power is currently the most vulnerable to carbon accounting <ul><li>Sources: </li></ul><ul><li>AEA Technology - Environment product Declaration of electricity from Torness Nuclear Power Plant </li></ul><ul><li>Naser Odeh & Timothy Cockerill - LCA of typical coal power plant & LCA of coal plant with CCS </li></ul><ul><li>Lewis Wind Farm Proposal </li></ul><ul><li>Elsam Engineering - LCA of onshore sited wind farms </li></ul>

6.
What does it all mean? <ul><li>Need to open debate of accountability of electricity production methods. </li></ul><ul><li>We need to have clear boundary definitions set that concern the entire life cycle of projects - pressure on all energy related industries to account in a standard manner </li></ul><ul><li>Reduce the number of assumptions made in assessments </li></ul><ul><li>Reduce involvement in projects with high degrees of uncertainty </li></ul><ul><li>Need a structure in place to meet legislation </li></ul><ul><li>House of Commons suggests current average of 541gCO 2 /kWh emissions factor to our electricity. This is the key figure to bring down, since it relates to every electricity-using object in Britain. Refers to our energy mix </li></ul>Need to reach a point where we can assess all aspects of electricity production and, like the car’s MOT certificate, be able to say about a project: fix or scrap , based on quantifiable assessment. I would like to invite you to open discussion on this topic.