Assessment of the consumption of water and construction materials in state-of-the-art fossil fuel power generation technologies involving CO2 capture

There is a growing concern about the impact of energy system decarbonisation on natural resources, such as raw materials and freshwater. Along this line, this paper assesses the needs for cooling water and construction materials of pulverised coal combustion (PF), integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power generation technologies with and without CCS (Carbon capture and storage). Moreover, the paper evaluates how the integration of CCS technologies influences the economics and operational performance of power plants providing up-dated techno-economic indicators. Introduction of CO2 capture results in an increase of specific water consumption compared to a conventional plant which is more significant in the cases of PF and NGCC (56–62% and 50%) than in IGCC (9–12%). Therefore, the large scale deployment of CCS can have a significant impact on freshwater resources. The introduction of CO2 capture also increases significantly the amount of plant construction materials. The increase is up to 100% for concrete and steel and up to 27% for copper and polyethylene. The cost of construction materials is 8–15% of total investment costs, hence any changes in their prices can have a measurable impact on the cost of a plant and hence on the competitiveness of the underlying technology.