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Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas (GHG)

Climate change is a shift in temperature, precipitation, wind and other long-term weather patterns. There is broad scientific consensus that our climate is changing - both regionally and globally - largely due to the combustion of fossil fuels and other human activities that increase atmospheric concentrations of Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), Nitrous oxide (N2O) and Other heat-trapping gases. Gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are often called greenhouse gases.These greenhouse gases form a "blanket" of pollution that traps heat in the atmosphere and causes climate instability characterized by severe weather events such as storms, droughts, floods, heat waves and rising sea levels. Climate change is a worldwide concern because if it continues, there will be significant impacts on people, natural resources and economic conditions around the globe. While the magnitude of these potential changes is difficult to predict, there is broad agreement that they are coming and will dramatically affect many aspects of our daily lives.

Figure 1: The Greenhouse Effect

Global warming causes by greenhouse effect Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as stipulated above act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth a part of the heat radiation, which would otherwise be lost to space. The higher the concentration of green house gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more heat energy is being reflected back to the Earth. The emission of carbon dioxide into the environment mainly from burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, petrol, kerosene, etc.) has been increased dramatically over the past 50 years, as indicated in Figure 2 below.

Source: Houghton, 2005 Figure 2: Cause of global warming: Carbon Dioxide emissions in million tons per year over the last 200 years. Since the beginning of the Industrial revolution, the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 280ppm to 390ppm. It is likely that anthropogenic warming, such as that due to elevated greenhouse gas levels, has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems. Warming is projected to affect various issues such as freshwater resources, industry, food and health. Furthermore, the main sources of greenhouse gases due to human activity are:

Burning of fossil fuels and deforestation leading to higher carbon dioxide concentrations in the air. Land use change (mainly deforestation in the tropics) account for up to one third of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Livestock enteric fermentation and manure management, paddy rice farming, land use and wetland changes, pipeline losses, and covered vented landfill emissions leading to higher methane atmospheric concentrations. Many of the newer style fully vented septic systems that enhance and target the fermentation process also are sources of atmospheric methane. Use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in refrigeration systems, and use of CFCs and halons in fire suppression systems and manufacturing processes. Agricultural activities, including the use of fertilizers, that lead to higher nitrous oxide (N2O) concentrations.

All energy systems emit greenhouse gases (GHG) and contribute to anthropogenic climate change. It is now widely recognised that GHG emissions resulting from the use of a particular energy technology need to be quantified over all stages of the technology and its fuel life-cycle. According to Weisser, 2007, to date a great variety of GHG life cycle assessment (LCA) of power plants has been conducted with various purposes. This paper has reviews and compares the results of recent greenhouse gas (GHG) emission life-cycle has been analyses. In this work, the investigation on carbon footprint covered at the upstream (e.g. fuel exploration, mining, fuel transport) and downstream (e.g. decommissioning, waste management and disposal) groups. Emissions from power plant operation are referred to as direct emissions. For fossil fuel technology options, upstream GHG emissions rates can be up to 25% of the direct emissions from the power plant. Based on IAEA 2000 report, from the total production chains, it show that fossil fuel technologies have the highest emission factors, with natural gas about half as much as coal or lignite and two thirds of the estimate for fuel oil. Nuclear and hydropower, on the other hand, have the lowest GHG releases, 50 to 100 times lower than coal (depending on technology). GHG emissions from solar power are in between, about an order of magnitude higher than nuclear. Nuclear power generation produces virtually no GHG emissions, and the entire nuclear chain has among the lowest emissions per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of any generating option including renewable (Figure 4). Countries with large nuclear and hydroelectric capacities have markedly lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy than do countries relying heavily on fossil fuels. Currently, nuclear and hydroelectric power each annually avoid GHG emissions equal to about 8 percent of the total global emissions from fossil fuels. Thus together, they avoid about 1.2 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) of carbon (GtC) each year that would otherwise have been produced through burning fossil fuels. Stern, 2006, states that calculating carbon footprint can be a valuable first step towards making quantifiable emission reductions. This in turn can lead to long term financial savings as well as reducing climate change impact.

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