HGS General Dinner Meeting April - Comparing Life-Cycle Environmental Impacts and Costs of Electricity Generation Systems

Join us for the HGS General Dinner Meeting in April!

Date: April 14, 2025

Place: Norris Conference Center, Beltway 8 and I-10 Houston

Time: 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm

Price: $65 for members; $75 for non-members; $40 for students

Comparing Life-Cycle Environmental Impacts and Costs of Electricity Generation Systems

Michael Young, Jani Das, Gurcan Gulen, University of Texas at Austin

Significant public discussion and policy decisions surround the broad topics of how best to decarbonize the electricity sector, especially given potential supply constraints of material needed to support these efforts. Research is needed to understand and quantify trade-offs among society’s goals of providing reliable and affordable energy, mitigating climate change, and improving local environments that can sustain the current population of eight billion people. The goals of this research are to better understand potential environmental risks across global supply chains; highlight where impacts can be mitigated; and develop and test a more comprehensive approach for determining consumer costs of electricity. We achieve these goals by conducting a comparative life-cycle assessment (LCA) of different generation systems, including natural gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines, and wind and solar power plants, with and without batteries to address intermittencies. We assess environmental impacts for 18 different pathways, including greenhouse gas and local (PM, SO_X, NO_X) emissions; land and water use and pollution, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and others. These LCA analyses consider extraction of natural resources (gas, minerals, etc.), manufacturing of generation equipment, power plant operations, and end-of-life options (e.g., landfilling or recycling of equipment). Our area of interest for electricity generation is the Permian Basin, the center of energy development.

We show in our study how environmental impacts are manifested along global supply chains that support energy development at different times during the 30-year lifespan of the facilities. For example, CO₂ emissions are elevated early in the construction phase of wind and solar (at locations mostly overseas), but CO₂ emissions from combustion at the CCGT plant in west Texas eventually exceed those from wind and solar. Alternatively, results indicate that particulate matter formation and ecotoxicity are higher for wind/solar/batteries than CCGT throughout all life phases, because of higher material processing and refining needs. Finally, we include these environmental impacts into the costs of electricity for different grid mixes, each tested for reliability using an electricity dispatch model. The results show the complicated nature of impacts along the global supply chain of materials needed for energy development and while electricity is generated, and they point to areas where impacts can be mitigated through innovation and action.

Speaker: 

Michael Young, Ph.D., P.G., University of Texas at Austin, Jackson School of Geosciences, Bureau of Economic Geology

Dr. Michael Young is Associate Dean for Research in the Jackson School of Geosciences at University of Texas at Austin, and a Research Professor at the Bureau of Economic Geology. He received his Ph.D. focusing on soil physics and hydrology from the University of Arizona in 1995, an M.S. in Geological Sciences from Ohio University in 1986 and a B.A. in Geology from Hartwick College in 1983. From 2010-2020, Dr. Young was Associate Director for Environmental Research at BEG, where he coordinated research programs for a group of ~60 scientists involved in research spanning energy/water issues, geological sequestration of CO₂, groundwater recharge processes, water quality and resources, and other areas. Previously, he has held leadership and academic positions at Desert Research Institute in Nevada, and Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dr. Young’s personal research interests and experiences include life cycle assessment; water/energy nexus; water and land impacts from energy development; groundwater recharge; and the connection between water resources, landscape development, and human interactions. He has authored or co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, several book chapters and many reports, and has given more than 200 presentations at scholarly meetings. He is the former Editor of the Vadose Zone Journal and is Fellow of the Geological Society of America, Soil Science Society of America, and the American Society of Agronomy. Dr. Young mentors several graduate students and sits on numerous other committees in scholarly organizations.