Life cycle analysis – Gaz de France prospective

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Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master Thesis
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2008
Författare
Copin, Nicolas
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Sammanfattning
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an important and comprehensive method for the analysis of the environmental impacts of a product or services throughout their whole life cycle. This project – carried out for Gaz de France – aimed at evaluating the impacts of the natural gas chain from gas production to the distribution of 1 MJ of gas to the private individual in France. The use phase has not been included. The time frame considered is year 2006 for the reference scenario, up to year 2050 with the evolution of technologies. Considering a far-off time perspective, focus has been made on the integration of new technologies. This study aims at evaluating two aspects: - What are the environmental impacts of the natural gas chain in 2006, and which part of the chain is mostly responsible for these impacts in 2006? - Will integration or globalization of new technologies lead to a significant improvement of the environmental balance, and how large variation will they turn to lead to on the various impact categories considered? One scenario (2006) regarding gas provision options has been defined for year 2006. By 2050, two scenarios have been considered. While a first one does not lead to any gas provision evolution compared to 2006 (S0), the other one offers another perspective with a gas provision diversification (S4). Hypotheses taken regarding this scenario can not be disclosed in this report, except for validation procedure. Agreement shall only be granted by Gaz de France. Therefore the scenario is only meant for comparison. After establishing the environmental impact for year 2006, three combinations have been developed for S0 and S4, corresponding to the integration of technological scenarios: “optimist”, “middle” and “pessimist”. Therefore, six options for the prospective gas chain of Gaz de France are presented in the report. Results show that technologies with the most significant environmental improvement potential concern gas turbine efficiencies, and the upgrading of the autoconsumptions in liquefaction plants for global warming potential and non renewable energy depletion. Low-NOx combustion systems happen to be showing high reduction potential on acidification. Comparison with scenario S4 shows that even when considering an increase in gas supply distances, technology integration more than compensates - in almost all cases - the environmental damage. Only a pessimist approach would present slightly higher values - and only for acidification - possibly partly due to production and treatment parts of the chain. Even though Gaz de France is not responsible for that part, these are principally the process that would need investment in the first place. Finally, not only does Gaz de France gas chain offer better overall environmental performance in the long term, but comparison with other energy fuels happen to confirm the advantages natural gas offers against its direct competitors: coal and fuel oil.
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Miljöteknik , Environmental engineering
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