Environmental Impact of Modern Wind Power under LCA Methodology

Abstract

Renewable energy sources constitute an alternative to fossil fuels and their problems, which are, on the one hand, the pollution and CO2 emissions that they produce and, on the other hand, the diminution of reserves, in addition to other economical and political problems, such as their increasing prices and the economic dependence of non-producers countries on those that produce fossil fuels. At the present time, renewable energy, and particularly wind power energy, is becoming increasingly relevant in the world’s electricity market, based on its advances and on the legislative support of governments in several countries (Rio del & Unruh, 2007; JagerWaldau, 2007; Karki, 2007; Breukers & Wolsink, 2007), for instance with legal frameworks presenting stable and lasting premiums. Figure 1 shows the contribution and the provisions of wind power to the electricity supply network in several countries, both at a European and world level; current forecasts predict that wind power will contribute 12% of the global demand for electricity by 2020 (GWEC, 2005). This huge boom in implementation and forecasts of this power source justify the need to increase its people’s understanding (Jungbluth et al., 2005; Gurzenich et al., 1999), based on scientific studies, especially from the point of view of its environmental impact. Wind power produces electrical energy from the kinetic energy of the wind, without directly producing any pollution or emissions during the conversion process, but this does not means that it is free of contamination or CO2 emissions. The question is that it should be considered that there is an environmental impact due to the manufacturing process of the wind turbine and the disposal process at the end of the wind turbine life cycle. And this environmental impact should be quantified in order to compare the effects of the production of energy, and to analyse the possibilities of improvement of the process from that point of view. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to show a methodology of analysis of the environmental impact of the wind energy technology, considering the whole life cycle of the wind power systems. The application of the ISO 14040 standard (ISO, 1998) allows us to quantify the overall impact of a wind turbine and each of its components from a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study. It also allows us to analyse the issues that produce more impact and the aspects that could be improved in order to reduce the effective impact. The LCA model has been developed with the purpose of determining and quantifying the related emissions and