Research on the quantitative assessment of the carbon footprint of domestic waste incineration power generation
2024
LIU Hanxiao* | SHAN Sike | LIANG Dinghong | HUANG Rongming | CUI Ying | LIN Qingyang | LIU Meiling | WANG Shuai | YANG Li | LIU Xiaowei
In recent years, waste incineration power generation has become one method for domestic waste treatment. The carbon footprint can provide a quantitative tool for evaluating greenhouse gas emissions from this process. A typical solid waste incineration plant in Jiangxi Province was chosen as the research object to calculate the carbon footprint and analyze the main stages of the life cycle of waste incineration power generation, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in such plants. The life cycle assessment (LCA) method was adopted, and the life cycle boundary of the power products generated by waste incineration was defined using 1 kW·h of grid power as the functional unit. The results showed that the carbon footprint per unit of grid power generation was 0.841 kg CO_2e/(kW·h), and the carbon footprint of per unit waste was 342.39 kg CO_2e/t. This relatively low carbon footprint might be attributed to the low calorific value of the selected garbage. The waste incineration stage had the highest emissions, accounting for 78% of the total. Therefore, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from waste incineration should primarily focus on minimizing direct carbon emissions from waste combustion. Operating the incineration plant at its rated load as much as possible is crucial to achieve this goal, along with increasing the recycling rate of plastic components and transitioning from diesel vehicles to electric vehicles.
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