Projecte en Curs

Title: CO2 capture and storage technologies: industry and government sustainability

Directors: Dr. Xavier Gabarrell, Dr. Laura Talens and Dr. Gara Villalba

OBJECTIVES

General

The main objective of this project is to assess the economic, social and environmental sides of various carbon capture technologies.

Specific

A large part of the work will be undertaken as part of the “Up-grading of landfill gas for lowering CO2 emissions (UPGAS-LOWCO2)” European Life project. This project is in collaboration with Universities and Institutions in Italy and Austria. The University of Venice, which is the coordinating university, will build two pilot plants that aim to remove CO2 from landfill gas, using novel technologies. This not only allows for storage of the CO2 but it also upgrades the quality of the landfill gas so that it may be used as an alternate fuel source. Under this project the following will be carried out:

• Environmental performances will be calculated to determine the environmental impact and CO2 avoided emissions of the two processes as well conventional landfill operations.
• To determine the environmental performance the methodologies such as Life Cycle Assessment, Exergy Analysis and Material and Energy Flow Analysis will be used.
• The impacts will also be calculated at national levels for Italy, Austria and Spain.
• Once these studies are completed it will be possible to determine the key vectors that allow for a reduction of the environmental impact of these processes.

Apart from the novel landfill technologies, current and emerging carbon capture technologies will be studied to determine how they can be adopted by industries, as well as by government legislations. They will be studied from an environmental as well as economic point of view.