Development of sustainability indicators for the assessment of coal-based power generation pathways

This paper is to develop measurable indicators of coal-based power generation pathways to establish a benchmark for comparative sustainability assessment and optimization. Power generation from coal subdivided to thirty-six pathways with the development of two sets of sustainability indicators. The first set includes the complete life cycle, and the second set includes only the power generation stage. The complete life cycle covers coal mining, power generation, and cooling system unit operations. Comprehensive evaluation necessitates the development of five sustainability indicators to cover water demand (consumption and withdrawals), greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), land use, and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). Compared to the conventional coal-based power generation technologies, new coal technology pathways have the lowest GHG emissions, use less water and land, but would have a different impact on the LCOE. The cooling system type is the factor with the most impact on the water demand indicators; coal combustion unit operation has the most impact on the GHG emissions indicator; dry cooling has the most impact on the LCOE indicator. The fuel production stage has the most impact on the land use indicator. The resources and GHG emissions-effective scenario conducted to cover the demand capacity range of 250–5000 MW. This scenario shows that due to the importation of coal from a different jurisdiction and based on the average values, the savings in water demand is 87%, the savings in land area is 95%, the mitigation of GHG emissions is 6%. In contrast, the corresponding average increase in LCOE is 14%.