『Abstract
At the end of 2010, China's contribution to global CO2
emissions reached 25.1%.Estimates show that power generation accounts
for 37.2% of the Chinese CO2 emissions. Even
though there is an increasing number of studies using life cycle
analysis (LCA) to examine energy consumption and CO2
emissions required by different types of power generation technologies,
there are very few studies focusing on China. Furthermore, the
nexus between water consumption and energy production has largely
been ignored. In this paper, we adopt input-output based hybrid
life cycle analysis to evaluate water consumption and CO2 emissions of wind power in China. Our results
show that China's wind energy consumes 0.64 l/kWh of water and
produces 69.9 g/kWh of CO2 emission. Given
that the Chinese government aims to increase the wind power generation
capacity to 200 GW by 2020, wind power could contribute a 23%
reduction in carbon intensity and could save 800 million m3
of water which could be sufficient enough for use by 11.2 million
households. This, given the often postulated water crisis, China's
energy policy would reap double benefits through progressive energy
policies when increasing the share of wind power as part of overall
efforts to diversify its electricity generation technologies.
Keywords: Wind power in China; Water consumption; CO2
emissions』
1. Introduction
2. Methodology
2.1. Input-output based hybrid life cycle analysis
2.2. Data source and data compilation
2.3. Limitations and constrains
3. Results and discussions
3.1. CO2 emissions
3.2. Water consumption
3.3. Comparison with other studies
4. Scenarios of water and carbon savings from wind power in China
5. Future improvements
6. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Appendix A. Data source and data compilation
Appendix B. List of figures on water consumption
References