Life Cycle Assessment of a Coal-fired Old Thermal Power Plant

This paper discusses a life cycle analysis of a thermal power plant to quantify environmental impacts of thermal power production at an old power plant. Coal is used in electricity generation worldwide and many power plants in developing countries are very old. Knowing the life cycle environmental impacts of such power plants is very important since they produce a lot of greenhouse gases. This paper develops life cycle inventories for an old power plant in Africa and identifies ways to minimize coal consumption for the same capacity of power output. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was done for the power plant. The emitted carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides and solid waste have adverse effects on flora, fauna, water bodies and humans. A number of environmental metrics were obtained for the thermal power plant and these form the basis for future comparative and extended studies.