Fossil Health Impacts Flashcards
What percentage of Americans are aware that air pollution from fossil fuel use harms human health?
73% according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
What health problems are caused by the use of fossil fuels?
Respiratory diseases, including asthma and lung cancer, as well as diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, weakening of the bones, immune deficiencies and neurologic health problems.
How much CO2e was emitted by fossil fuels in 2013?
Fossil fuels dominate the global electricity system and emitted >13 GtCO2 in 2013 (>40% of energy-related CO2).
What is CCS?
CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. Using CCS, CO2 that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere during fuel combustion is captured, compressed, and transported to a suitable storage site, where it is injected deep underground and retained in the subsurface through natural trapping mechanisms.
What are the different approaches to CCS?
There are generally three different approaches to integrating CO2 capture with power generation: pre, post, and oxyfuel combustion (oxy-combustion).
What is Pre-Combustion CCS and give an example?
In precombustion processes, hydrocarbon fuels are converted to a mixture of hydrogen and CO2 (via gasification or reforming combined with the water-gas shift reaction) and the CO2 separated from hydrogen, the latter being used as fuel for power generation. Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants equipped with CO2 capture, such as the Kemper County Energy Facility in the United States (582 MW), are one example of this process.
What is Post-Combustion CCS and give an example?
In postcombustion processes CO2 is separated from low-pressure flue gas—largely a mixture of nitrogen, water, and CO2—rather than from the fuel (70). Postcombustion capture can be applied to conventional pulverized coal (PC) boilers and natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants. The most prominent examples of postcombustion capture are the Boundary Dam Power Plant in Canada (110 MW), operating since 2014, and the W.A. Parish Power Plant in the United States (240 MW), scheduled to begin operation in early 2017.
What is Oxy-Combustion CCS and give an example?
The third approach is oxy-combustion, in which coal or gas is burned in a mixture of oxygen and CO2 rather than air. Oxy-combustion avoids the need for a CO2 separation step, but requires separation of oxygen from air. As of 2016, there were no operating commercial-scale examples of oxy-combustion; however, oxy-combustion of coal has been successfully demonstrated at scales up to 30 MW, and cryogenic air separation is fully commercial technology, with thousands of units operating worldwide at equivalent power generation capacities of up to 300 MW.
Is it possible to retrofit CCS to existing plants?
Yes. The option to retrofit CCS to existing plants is particularly valuable in rapidly developing countries with large, relatively young fossil generation fleets and growing demands for electricity. For example, Chinese electricity demand more than doubled between 2005 and 2015, while over the same period the installed capacity of coal-fired power plants in China rose from 272 GW to ∼900 GW.
