Page 165 - Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

150 Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

that is regularly used for strategy development. While conventional scenario
analysis has focused on economic criteria, it is possible to apply LCSA in the
same manner.
The following case study is based on Stamford and Azapagic (2014).It
uses the same technologies and data sources as Section 3.1 but develops
the analysis further to explore the sustainability impacts of the entire UK
electricity mix up to the year 2070. It also serves as an example of the imple-
mentation of learning curves, parameter variation, and simple decision
analysis.

3.2.1 Goal and scope definition
Achieving the UK’s legally binding target of reducing GHG emissions by
80% by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels) will require a complete decarboni-
zation of the UK electricity mix in that time period (UKERC, 2009). Given
the long lives of several electricity generation assets, such as nuclear plants
with a 60-year design life, it is also true that decisions made today will be
with us beyond 2050.
Consequently, the goal of this case study is to explore the sustainability of
potential future electricity mixes considering a range of generation technol-
ogies. The functional unit of the analysis is 1kWh of electricity in the year of
interest, and the evaluation includes the same 36 sustainability indicators
covered in the previous section. A cradle-to-gate system boundary is
adopted, in line with the previous case study, beginning with raw material
extraction and ending with the generation of electricity at the power plant.
Consequently, the transmission and distribution infrastructure are not
included.

3.2.2 Scenario development
Three main scenarios are considered, each with either one or two subsce-
narios depicting possible futures for electricity in the United Kingdom to
2070; their characteristics are summarized in Table 5.6. All the scenarios
are driven by the need to reduce GHG emissions, as this is one of the main
energy policy drivers in the United Kingdom (DECC, 2011a,b). The three
main scenarios explore three different GHG reduction levels for the electric-
ity mix—65%, 80%, and 100%—by 2050 relative to 1990. The most ambi-
tious of the three is based on the fact that, to achieve the national target of
80% overall reduction of GHG emissions, a 100% reduction is required in
the electricity mix due to the greater difficulty of decarbonizing the heat and
transport sectors. The 65% and 80% scenarios are chosen to examine the