Assessing Global Warming Economic Impacts through a Life Cycle Approach: The Case of Biomass-fired Power Generation Systems in Greece

摘要

The aim of the present work is to estimate the external cost related to the climate change airborne emissions (i.e. carbon dioxide) generated during all life cycle stages of the biomass-fired power plants in Greece. For this purpose, the paper applies the EcoSenseLE tool, together with the basic principles of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. Results show that biomass-fired power plants have a very good performance. Regarding the life cycle stages, the climate change external cost is primarily made of CO_2 emitted during the construction of power plant. The finding could be important for decision making in environmental and energy policies while the general limitation of the external cost methodology applies to this work, together with data limitations and assumptions related to the LCA methodology.