Anwendung energetischer und nicht-energetischer Ressourcen in Energiesystemen: Vergleichende Bewertung

Goal and Scope

Which impact does the use of non-energetic abiotic resources (ores, minerals, etc.) have in life cycles of energy systems based on biogenic and fossil fuels? Is this kind of resource use less or more environmentally harmful than the utilisation of energetic abiotic resources (mineral oil, natural gas, etc.) in the same life cycles? This paper aims at answering these questions. In Part 1, a methodology is presented and applied to the life cycles of selected energy systems. Part 2 presents and discusses the results.

Methods

The applied methodology has been explained in the Part 1. For the assessment of energetic abiotic resource use, a widely recognised method is used. For the assessment of nonenergetic abiotic resource use, no overall recognised methodological approach exists. That is why for this aspect two different methods are exemplarily applied and compared with each other.

Results and Conclusion

Results show that the two assessment approaches for non-energetic resource utilisation lead to qualitatively equal results. Nevertheless they differ considerably from each other in their absolute values. This makes obvious that there is still a need for further methodological research work on that issue. Nevertheless, both methodologies yield that the accumulated effect of ore and mineral use is considerably lower than the accumulated effect of fossil primary energy utilisation in all life cycles analysed. With the assumptions made, the use of non-energetic abiotic resources only plays a comparatively subordinate role in the environmental life cycle assessment of energy systems based on biogenic and fossil fuels.

Recommendation and Perspective

Results suggest that an important resource-related impact of biomass and fossil fuel powered energy systems is caused by their consumption of fossil primary energy resources. The impact of non-energetic resource use can be neglected in comparison to that. At the same time, results also make clear that there is still a considerable need for further methodical research aiming at a standardised assessment methodology for the use of non-energetic abiotic resources.