A Sustainability Assessment of Electricity Generation

Author

Evans, Annette ; Strezov, Vladimir

Author_Institution

Grad. Sch. of the Environ., Macquarie Univ., Sydney, NSW, Australia

fYear

2010

fDate

7-13 March 2010

Firstpage

106

Lastpage

111

Abstract

The sustainability of electricity generation has been assessed by the application of eight key indictors. Literature data has been applied to rank different electricity generating technologies in order of sustainability. Photovoltaics, wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass, natural gas, coal and nuclear power have been compared according to their price, greenhouse gas emissions, efficiency, land use, water use, availability, limitations and social impacts on a per kilowatt hour basis. The relevance of this information to the Australian context is discussed.

Keywords

electric power generation; hydroelectric power; nuclear power; photovoltaic power systems; wind power; biomass; coal; electricity generation; geothermal; greenhouse gas emissions; hydro; natural gas; nuclear power; photovoltaics; sustainability assessment; wind; Air pollution; Carbon dioxide; Costs; Fuels; Geothermal power generation; Global warming; Nuclear power generation; Power generation; Production; Wind energy generation; electricity; life cycle; renewable; sustainability;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Biosciences (BIOSCIENCESWORLD), 2010 International Conference on

Conference_Location

Cancun

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5929-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/BioSciencesWorld.2010.29

Filename

5445562