Highly Parameterized openLCA Model of a Novel Carbon-Negative BECCS Power Plant
Description
Biomass co-firing with carbon capture and storage is a promising avenue for producing carbon negative power. This work shows the final iteration of a midpoint attributional lifecycle assessment (LCA) on the front-end engineering design (FEED) stage of a plant which combusts forest residue biomass, waste coal product, and virgin coal to produce power. The LCA was performed in accordance with the 21st century power plant (21CPP) initiative and extends upon work performed by (Bennett et al. 2023), wherein the global warming potential of an initial plant design was assessed during a pre-FEED study. LCA was integrated into plant design from an early stage to identify environmental hot-spots, inform design decisions, and identify the fraction of biomass which must be fired to achieve a carbon negative footprint. The final plant design uses a novel combination of pressurized fluidized bed combustors (PFBCs) and an atmospheric fluidized bed biomass boiler to achieve targeted efficiency and electricity generation goals. The proposed plant generates -70 to -100 gCO2eq/kWh produced (depending on the biomass process unit used), when 20% forest residue biomass is fired on an energy basis, and virgin coal is mixed with waste coal on a 50% mass basis.
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Steps to reproduce
The attached openLCA model has a variety of parameters which can be altered within the model beneath the "global parameter" section. The set functional unit for the process is 1 kWh of power production. The model was built to be used with the GHGRP GWP impact assessment method. Each process unit and flow has descriptions and citation information. Every flow has set data quality values which can be used to define uncertainty using the DQI data quality matrix. The process which contains the functional unit is called "Plant Output (1 kWh)". Due to the highly parameterized nature of the model, creating a product system from the "Plant Output" process may cause issues with the openLCA software, and the author recommends calculating directly from the process unit using a direct calculation. Two unit processes can be selected between to determine the embodied emissions of forest residue biomass. The unit process "Forest Residue, Raw", originally made by NETL for the CO2U openLCA database, calculates embodied emissions exclusively based on as-received fuel mass. The author-made unit process "Forest Biomass Collection" calculates embodied emissions in the biomass based on inputted moisture and carbon content values for the as-received biomass. It additionally includes emissions from combusted diesel used during biomass collection. The methods can be chosen between by changing the provider for "Forest Residue, Harvested" in the "Biomass Collection and Transport" unit process. Included process flows are in their original folders if pulled from a published openLCA database. Processes made by the authors are under the folder "PI Data".
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Funders
- United States Department of EnergyUnited States