Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the solution of building more nuclear power plants, we must keep in mind
that at the present time they can only replace stationary point sources,
meaning coal- or natural gas-fired power plants, to alleviate the carbon
burden. (Electrification of transportation, especially vehicles on the road,
is still limited.) For this analysis, we compare two scenarios: one where
the nuclear plants replace coal-fired power plants with average life-cycle
emissions of 866 g CO 2 per kWh produced, and one where the nuclear
plants replace combined natural gas cycle power plants with average
life-cycle emissions of 439 g CO 2 per kWh produced. Both emission
intensities represent the most efficient power plants and thus an upper
limit to the number of required power plants (from an economic point of
view it would be more sensible to replace older and less efficient power
plants with higher emission factors).
Assuming that the average capacity of a new nuclear reactor would
be 1 GW and each reactor would substitute coal/gas electricity, we find
that between 9 (coal scenario) and 18 (gas scenario) nuclear power
plants would need to have been built between 2009 and 2012. Assuming
these plants had been built consecutively with equal temporal spacing, a
new nuclear power plant would need to have been built every 4 or 2
months, respectively.
Searching for Bigfoot (calculating and comparing
carbon footprints)
Question: Calculate your own carbon footprint using an online calculator (http://www.
carbonfootprint.com) and identify the two largest contributing factors for your lifestyle.
Compare this to the carbon footprint of an average citizen in the USA, in India, and in China.
Solution: Angus Ming Yiu Chan, Sirine Constance Fakra, Jeffrey Kaut Krajewski,
Yuguang She, Zhou Lin, Sophia Louise Shevick, Mohammad Haider Agha Hasan,
Kristopher Enslow, and Anna Claire Harley-Trochimczy.
A carbon footprint is the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions that
a person, organization, country, or region emits over a specified length of
time. The contributions to the carbon footprint can be broken down into
two categories: primary and secondary. Primary emissions are those
Search WWH ::




Custom Search