Page 411 - Air pollution and greenhouse gases from basic concepts to engineering applications for air emission control

390 12 Carbon Capture and Storage

12.9 Environmental Assessment

Although many technologies have been claimed to be effective in reducing carbon
emissions, a comprehensive life cycle analysis (LCA) must be conducted before an
affirmative conclusion can be made. Since the 1970s, environmental assessment has
been developed as a systematic process to identify, analyze, and evaluate the
environmental effects of products or activities to ensure that the environmental
implications of decisions are taken into account before the decisions are made.
Environmental assessment allows effective integration of environmental consider-
ations and public concerns into decision-making.
In principle, environmental assessment can be undertaken for individual projects
such as a dam, motorway, factory, or a bioenergy plantation; it can also be done at a
large scale for plans, programs, and policies. These approaches aim at providing a
systematic procedure for identifying potential risks to human health and the envi-
ronment, and a comparison of the respective risks to alternative options for different
environmental compartments (air, soil, water).
LCA is a specific method developed in the 1980s for determining and comparing
the potential environmental impacts of product systems or services at all stages in
their life cycle—from extraction of resources, through the reduction and use of the
product to reuse, recycling or final disposal. It can be applied in strategy formulation,
product development, and marketing. The LCA methodology has been developed
extensively during the last decade. Moreover, a number of LCA-related standards
(ISO 14040-14043) and technical reports have been published by the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) to streamline the methodology.
The LCA approach is quite data-intensive. Not only are direct impacts included,
but also those stemming from “upstream” activities such as mining, processing, and
transport, as well as the materials (and energy) needed to manufacture all processes.
With LCA being developed as a specific assessment methodology to compare
products, the formal assessment requirements from the ISO standards for LCA are
demanding with regard to time and resources.

References and Further Readings

1. Aboudheir A, Tontiwachwuthikula P, Chakmab A, Idema R (2003) Kinetics of the reactive
absorption of carbon dioxide in high CO 2 -loaded, concentrated aqueous monoethanolamine
solutions. Chem Eng Sci 58(2003):5195–5210
2. Adanez J, Abad A, Garcia-Labiano F, Gayan P, de Diego LF (2012) Progress in chemical-
looping combustion and reforming technologies. Prog Energy Combust Sci 38:215–282
3. Almantariotis D, Gefflaut T, Padua AAH, Coxam JY, Costa Gomes MF (2010) Effect of
fluorination and size of the alkyl sidechain on the solubility of carbon dioxide in 1-alkyl-3-
methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)amide ionic liquids. J Phys Chem B
114:3608–3617