Life cycle assessment of Portland cement production in Myanmar

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - Cement manufacturing is associated with global and local environmental issues. Many studies have employed life cycle assessment (LCA) to...     

Environmental toxicity potential from electricity generation in Tanzania

Purpose

Environmental toxicity potential is the potential harm of a chemical substance or a compound that is released into the environment. Such harm is present in the generation of electricity using fossil fuels that release toxins that result in environmental pollution that would certainly have serious implications on human health and the ecosystem quality. This study assessed the environmental toxicity potential of the centralized grid-connected electricity generating systems for the years 2000, 2015, 2020, 2026 and 2030, according to the Tanzania Electricity Supply Company Limited, TANESCO’s power system master plan of the year 2009.

Methods

Life cycle assessment, which is a globally and widely used tool for assessing what impact product or services have during their life cycle, from production stage to disposal stage was used to assess the electricity generating systems based on process analysis. The life cycle impact assessment was calculated using CML 2001 version 2.05.

Results and discussion

The results show that environmental toxicity potentials increase significantly for the years 2000, 2015, 2020, 2026 and 2030. In addition, the contribution of electricity generation from fossil fuels viz. coal, natural gas, heavy fuel and industrial diesel oils to the environmental toxicity potentials are high as compared to that of hydroelectricity.

Conclusions

The result suggests that increasing the share of hydroelectricity would significantly help to reduce the environmental toxicity potentials and ultimately the environmental profile of the electricity generation could be improved.     

Life cycle assessment of gasoline in Indonesia

Purpose  

In the Indonesian transportation sector, gasoline is the most consumed fuel; in 2008 it accounted for 60% of the total fuel consumption in transportation. Increasing concern regarding environmental issues, particularly urban air quality, makes the utilization of gasoline in transport a crucial aspect to be analyzed. However, besides tailpipe emissions, there are many upstream processes when producing gasoline which need to be evaluated in terms of impacts to the environment.