The influence of allocation on the carbon footprint of electricity production from waste gas, a case study for blast furnace gas

Abstract

Producing electricity from waste gas is an after treatment for waste gas while recovering the energy content. This paper addresses the methodology to calculate the effect that waste gas energy recovery has on lowering the impact of climate change. Greenhouse gases are emitted while burning the waste gas. However, a thorough study should include the production of the feedstock as well as the production of the infrastructure. A framework is developed to calculate the environmental impact of electricity production from waste gas with a life cycle approach. The present paper has a twofold purpose: to assess the climate change impact of generating electricity with blast furnace gas (BFG) as a waste gas from the steel industry; and to establish a sensitivity assessment of the environmental implications of different allocation rules. © 2013 by the authors. licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.