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A B S T R A C T
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a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 21 July 2015
Received in revised form
26 November 2015
Accepted 8 December 2015
Available online 18 December 2015
We performed a comprehensive and internally consistent assessment of the energy performance of the
full range of electricity production technologies in the United Kingdom, integrating the viewpoints offered by net energy analysis (NEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA). Specically, the energy return on
investment (EROI), net-to-gross energy output ratio (NTG) and non-renewable cumulative energy demand (nr-CED) indicators were calculated for coal, oil, gas, biomass, nuclear, hydro, wind and PV electricity. Results point to wind, and to a lesser extent PV, as the most recommendable technologies overall
in order to foster a transition towards an improved electricity grid mix in the UK, from both points of
view of short-term effectiveness at providing a net energy gain to support the multiple societal energy
consumption patterns, and long-term energy sustainability (the latter being inversely proportional to the
reliance on non-renewable primary energy sources). The importance to maintain a sufcient installed
capacity of readily-dispatchable gas-red electricity is also recognised.
& 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords:
Net energy analysis
EROI
EROEI
Life cycle assessment
Cumulative energy demand
Electricity
1. Introduction
1.1. The key role of electricity and the challenges ahead
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: marco.raugei@brookes.ac.uk (M. Raugei).
Exponential population growth and the progressive industrialisation of many developing countries have led to steadily
increasing energy use, and projections indicate that global demand for primary energy is likely to grow by an additional 37% by
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2015.12.011
0301-4215/& 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
47
Table 1
Electricity production technologies comprising the UK electric grid mix and relative
shares of total electricity output in the year 2013 (Department of Energy & Climate
Change (DECC), 2014a; National Grid, 2014a).
Technology
Coal
Oil
Gas
Gas combined cycle
Nuclear
Biomass
Hydro
Wind (on shore)
Wind (off-shore)
PV
37.0
0.6
1.3
26.7
19.1
4.8
1.4
4.0
4.4
0.7
TWhel
(2013)
TWhel (2035)
No
Progression
TWhel (2035)
Slow
Progression
TWhel
(2035)
Gone
Green
TWhel
(2035)
Low
Carbon
Life
Coal
Coal CCS
Oil
Gas
Gas CCS
Nuclear
Biomass
Hydro
Wind (offshoreoffshore)
PV
124
0
2
94
0
64
16
5
28
3
0
0
159
0
31
17
7
64
3
3
0
53
7
50
17
10
132
4
30
0
55
30
68
25
17
170
4
32
0
53
49
93
20
16
106
10
17
16
48
49
2. Methodology
The choice was made to jointly apply NEA and LCA, so as to
capture both viewpoints offered by these two disciplines, and
enable a balanced discussion of the results in terms of short-term
energy effectiveness and long-term energy sustainability.
Fig. 1 schematically illustrates the two main existing classes of
electricity generation systems. Diagram [A] refers to a thermal
system relying on a feedstock supply (of coal, oil, gas, biomass or
nuclear fuel), and diagram [B] refers to a system directly harvesting a renewable primary energy ow (of hydro, wind, or solar
energy).
The following denitions apply:
the case of system [A] also includes that co-extracted but then
lost to the environment (Arvesen and Hertwich, 2015).
Inv total energy investment required to: (i) build, operate and
decommission the power plant (applies to systems [A] and [B]),
and (ii) extract, deliver and rene the feedstock (applies to
system [A] only).
Out total energy produced.
50
NEG = OutPE eq In v
Based on the denitions above, the following NEA indicators
may be calculated:
EROIPE-eq OutPE-eq/Inv EROIel/G energy return on investment, in terms of equivalent primary energy.
3. Data
Sub-Sections 3.13.8 contain brief descriptions of the key
3
Incidentally, as discussed elsewhere (Raugei, 2013), the same consideration
also applies to the Energy Pay-Back Time (EPBT) indicator (Fthenakis et al., 2011),
which is often used when reporting on the energy performance of PVs and other
renewable technologies.
aspects of the analysed electricity production technologies. Detailed calculation tables for all technologies are provided in the
Supplementary Information, available via the Internet at: http://
www.sciencedirect.com.
3.1. Coal electricity
Until the 1960s, the UKs demand for coal was almost entirely
met by domestic production (Department of Energy & Climate
Change (DECC), 2013a). The situation has since radically changed,
and over the last forty years coal imports have played an ever
larger role; in 2013 almost all the UK coal supply was imported,
with 90% thereof coming from three countries: Russia, the USA
and Colombia (Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC),
2015a). In all three countries, and especially Russia and Colombia,
a large share of the coal is extracted by surface mining (Energy
Information Administration (EIA), 2013, 2015a, 2015b), which requires the removal of large amounts of overburden and entails
considerable environmental impact. Coal-red electricity production is a mature technology that is not expected to undergo major
changes in the coming decades, except for the possible retro-tting of carbon capture and storage (CCS) equipment, which is
however still only at the project proposal stage in the UK (Carbon
Capture & Storage Association (CCSa), 2015).
3.2. Oil electricity
Approximately 20% of the UKs demand for crude oil is met by
domestic off-shore production in the North Sea, with the rest
coming mainly from Algeria, Nigeria and Norway (Department of
Energy & Climate Change (DECC), 2014b). After being transported
to the UK mainland by oceanic tankers, the crude oil is rened
(mostly at 8 major reneries in England, Wales and Scotland
(OBorn, 2012)) into a number of co-products, of which the heavy
fuel oil (HFO) used for electricity generation represents approximately 10% by mass (Department of Energy & Climate Change
(DECC), 2015a). The allocation of the overall energy investment
and CED for the rening operations to the renery co-products
was done on the basis of their average energy content (Jungbluth,
2007). Oil-red electricity production is also technologically mature; its current share of the UK grid mix is however very small,
and it is planned to be phased out almost completely in all future
scenarios drafted by National Grid (2014a).
3.3. Gas and gas combined cycle electricity
As recently as in 2000, UK natural gas was almost entirely
sourced from domestic off-shore deposits in the North Sea; from
that year onwards, the level of imports has progressively increased
as UK domestic supplies have declined (Whitmarsh et al., 2012;
National Grid, 2014b). In 2013, less than half of the total UK supply
of natural gas was domestic, while most of the rest was imported
from Norwegian off-shore deposits and, in a smaller measure,
from the Netherlands via the Balgzand Bacton Line (a recent purpose-built natural gas interconnector between the two countries,
mainly delivering gas from the on-land Groningen eld in the NL
(Whaley, 2009)). Transport of natural gas via pipeline entails inevitable losses, which were accounted for in our analysis using
Ecoinvents estimates. Approximately 10% of the overall gas imports to the UK in 2013 were also supplied in liqueed form (LNG),
mainly from Qatar (National Grid, 2014b); due to the unavailability
of detailed inventory data for Qatari operations, this small percentage was however disregarded in our analysis. Finally, the exploitation of domestic non-conventional gas deposits found in onshore shales is planned but not yet operational (National Grid,
2014b); given the different nature of these deposits and of the
technology required to exploit them, it is not possible to extrapolate information on the associated energy investment from the
existing datasets. Both conventional and combined cycle gas-red
electricity production are mature technologies; the former is
however much more widespread, and it benets from a higher
overall feedstock-to-electricity conversion efciency thanks to the
secondary exploitation of the heat produced in the gas combustion
process.
3.4. Biomass electricity
The term biomass encompasses a large variety of materials,
including wood from various sources, agricultural residues, and
animal and human waste. Three main types of biomass are used
for electricity production in the UK: wood chips, wood pellets and
straw (Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC), 2014c).
Both the wood chips and straw are sourced domestically, while the
wood pellets are imported from North America (mainly the USA).
Mass-based allocation was used for all multi-output processes in
the supply chains of these feedstocks. All three biomass feedstocks
are then directly combusted in thermal power plants, which are
often former coal power plants converted to use biomass (Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC), 2014c).
3.5. Nuclear electricity
UK national data for uranium imports are not directly available
(UK parliament, 2010). The UK supply mix was therefore assumed
to be the same as that for the EU as a whole, which in 2013 was
mainly from Kazakhstan, Canada, Russia, Nigeria and Australia
(European Commission, 2014). Canadian uranium mostly comes
from underground mines (Canadian Nuclear Association, 2015),
while open-pit mining and in-situ leaching (ISL) are also common
elsewhere (World Nuclear Association, 2015a). No detailed process
information was available for ISL, though, and as a result the
production of yellowcake (the name given to the marketable U
ore concentrate) in all other countries beside Canada was modelled on the basis of 50% open-pit and 50% underground mining.
To produce ssile fuel, uranium oxide is converted to UF6 and
subject to an enrichment process whereby the concentration of
the 235U isotope is increased. Historically, U enrichment was performed by diffusion, but this process has now been almost completely displaced by the more efcient centrifuge method (World
Nuclear Association, 2015b). Mixed oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel obtained by recycling and re-processing spent fuel is not currently
used in the UK (European Commission, 2014). Of the sixteen nuclear reactors in operation in the UK (UK government, 2015),
fourteen are advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGR) built between
the late 1970s and 1980s, one is a newer pressurised water reactor
(PWR), and one an even older Magnox reactor (which was
scheduled to be decommissioned by the end of 2014 (Berkemeier
et al., 2014), but which was then given a one-year extension (BBC,
2014)). Of these three reactor types, detailed life-cycle inventory
information was only available for the more common PWR, which
was therefore used as the model of choice in our study. The AGR
and Magnox reactors are peculiar British designs, which are similar to but somewhat more complex than PWRs, and their production may have entailed a larger energy investment. On the one
hand, our results may therefore be looked at as a best case estimate of the current performance of nuclear electricity in the UK.
On the other hand, however, all but one of the AGR reactors are
due for retirement within the next decade, and most future nuclear power plants to be built in the UK are planned to be of the
PWR type (Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre
(NAMRC), 2015); our results may thus still be considered quite
relevant in terms of their energy policy implications.
51
52
3.8. PV electricity
Fig. 2 (note use of logarithmic vertical axis) illustrates the resulting EROIel of all analysed technologies, alongside the value for
the UK electric grid as a whole. The latter was calculated as:
100
58
[ MJel / MJPE ]
30
17
18
14
11
10
8.6
5.4
3.6
3.3
1.7
1.1
1
Coal
Oil
Gas
Gas CC
Nuclear
Biomass
Hydro
UK grid
Fig. 2. EROIel of all non-renewable (square symbols) and renewable (round symbols) electricity generation technologies deployed in the UK, and overall value for the UK grid
as a whole (diamond symbol). Values for hydro, wind and PV technologies include sensitivity analysis to account for variability in capacity factors and uncertainty in
expected lifetimes.
53
100
90
Oil (UK)
80
[ MJEC / MJPE ]
70
Coal (Colombia)
60
50
Oil (Norway)
Coal (USA)
40
30
20
Coal (Russia)
10
Oil (Algeria)
Oil (Nigeria)
0
FF at source (1)
Electricity (4)
Fig. 3. EROI (direct output of energy carrier over investment of equivalent primary energy) of coal (black squares) and oil (white squares) along the successive stages of their
supply chains to the UK, from extraction (1), on to delivery (2), rening (3), and conversion into electricity at the power plant (4).
only possible output is electricity. Referring to the case of coalred electricity in the UK as a practical example, our analysis has
shown that the average EROI 27 [MJth/MJPE] of raw coal at the
extraction sites in the supplying countries (cf. Fig. 3 and Table S1 in
the Supplementary Information) shrinks to EROIel 3.5 [MJel/MJPE]
(i.e., almost one order of magnitude lower) by the time the fuel has
been delivered, rened and converted into electricity. Clearly, it is
the latter gure, and not the former, which should be compared to
the EROIel of other competing electricity production technologies
in the same country.
It is then even more important to keep in mind that, from the
point of view of NEA, what is ultimately important is the available
NEG, and the directly related NTG. As discussed in Section 2, NEG
and NTG may only be strictly dened when both the energy investment (Inv) and the delivered energy carrier (OutPE-eq) are expressed as (equivalent) primary energy. It is easy to verify that:
Gas CC
41
Wind (o-shore)
52
Nuclear
87
PV (CdTe)
25
PV (c-Si)
10
1.0
Coal
10
0.9
Wind (on shore)
50
Oil
4.8
Gas
31
0.8
0.7
Biomass
3.1
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
[ MJPE / MJPE ]
Hydro
170
54
0.0
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
[ MJPE / MJPE ]
20
10
UK grid:
16
Fig. 4. Net energy cliff illustrating non-linear relation of NTG to EROIPE-eq, with values for all non-renewable (square symbols) and renewable (round symbols) electricity
generation technologies deployed in the UK, and threshold set by overall EROIPE-eq of the UK grid as a whole (dashed line).
55
10
4.4
3.1
3.3
2.9
2.5
2.2
nr-CED
[ MJPE / MJel ]
0.86
0.30
0.12
0.1
0.053
0.050
0.016
0.01
Coal
Oil
Gas
Gas CC
Nuclear
Biomass
Hydro
UK grid
Fig. 5. nr-CED of all non-renewable (square symbols) and renewable (round symbols) electricity generation technologies deployed in the UK, and overall value for the UK
grid as a whole (diamond symbol). Values for nuclear, hydro, wind and PV technologies include sensitivity analysis to account for, respectively: alternative accounting
methods for the CED of uranium (nuclear), and variability in capacity factors and uncertainty in expected lifetimes (hydro, wind and PV).
1.0
Gas CC
Nuclear
Hydro
Wind (o-shore)
Gas
0.9
Coal
PV (c-Si)
0.8
Oil
0.7
Biomass
10
UK grid
0.1
nr-CED
[ MJPE / MJPE ]
PV (CdTe)
UK grid
0.6
0.01
[ MJPE / MJel ]
Fig. 6. Positioning of all non-renewable (square symbols) and renewable (round symbols) electricity generation technologies deployed in the UK in the two-dimensional
space dened by nr-CED (horizontal axis) and NTG (vertical axis). The overall values of the two indicators for the UK grid as a whole (dashed lines) dene four quadrants, of
which the right upper one contains those technologies whose combined performance w.r.t the two indicators is better than that of the grid itself. Values for nuclear, hydro,
wind and PV technologies include sensitivity analysis to account for, respectively: alternative accounting methods for the CED of uranium (nuclear), and variability in
capacity factors and uncertainty in expected lifetimes (hydro, wind and PV).
Fig. 6 makes it clear that, in the UK, coal- and oil-red electricity generation are the least desirable technologies overall, in
terms of both their inefcient use of non-renewable primary resources and their comparatively low NTG ratios (the latter partly
determined, as discussed before, by the necessity to import the
fuels from distant overseas suppliers). Oil-red electricity is only a
very minor contributor to the UK grid mix already, but the share of
coal-red electricity is instead the largest in the mix (cf. Table 1).
56
opposite reasons), and therefore neither would be able to singlehandedly follow the dynamic pattern of societal electricity demand. The potential impact of energy storage will thus have to be
carefully assessed in future research but critically, as part of a
fully-edged prospective analysis of the energy performance of
the whole grid under a number of alternative development scenarios, rather than as part and parcel of any individual technologies in isolation (Carbajales-Dale et al., 2015).
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (Grant EP/K022229/1).
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