Life Cycle Assessment of High Speed Rail Electrification Systems and Effects on Corridor Planning
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Life Cycle Assessment of High Speed Rail Electrification Systems and Effects on Corridor Planning Babak Eslami Ebrahimi Master in Industrial Ecology Submission date: July 2014 Supervisor: Helge Brattebø, EPT Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Energy and Process Engineering i ii Acknowledgement It has been a great honor and opportunity to accomplish this master thesis within MiSA – Asplan Viak AS, which brought me a great bilateral procedure by being in close connection between the industry and academia. A lot of challenges were along the way of this project that would have not been achieved without support of individuals. I would like to first express my gratitude to my supervisor Helge Bratebø at the University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and co-supervisor Håvard Begrsdal at MiSA – Asplan Viak AS for giving me their unstinting guidance. I also would like to thank Thoresen Thor Egil at the Norwegian National Rail Administration (Jernbaneverket) for providing me valuable information, which without the data; such analysis would have not been possible. I am also grateful to Stefan Uppenberg (at WSP environmental), Jan Bystrom (at Trafikverket), Kjell Holter (at Jernbaneverket), Lisa Marie Erlandsen (at COWI AS), Knut Hammervoll (at Statnett) and so many other people that helped me along this study. Further acknowledgement goes to my family for their unstinting support through my education. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to all people in Misa – Asplan Viak AS and my fellow classmates at the department of Industrial Ecology for all the nice moments that we shared together. Babak E. Ebrahimi, Trondheim, July 2014. iii Abstract Different environmental analyses are so far allocated to assess emissions corresponding to high-speed rail infrastructure in era of environmental concern for maximize mobility and accessibility. However, electrification of HSR due to various components is intricate and roughly in detail in existing inventories. Predominantly, this is due to this fact that the existing inventories associated to HSR infrastructure focus on climate gases that lead to concrete and steel as the dominant input materials. Life cycle assessment (LCA), as a useful tool in evaluation of environmental impacts related to products and/or activities, can be helpful to deliver a better understanding of a defined system and later on can assist in decision making (by comparing alternative cases with each other). In this thesis, a complete LCA of HSR electrification is performed under PCR guideline that embraces a 60-year lifetime with a functional unit of one kilometer for three life cycle phases that are: construction, maintenance & renewal, and disposal. The results from this study are shown in six-impact categories (with two additional impact categories that are not mentioned in the PCR guideline). In addition, the results from the LCA of HSR electrification are applied to 12 alignments (as a projection of environmental analysis of Norwegian HSR) to illustrate the effect of HSR electrification on corridor planning. Regardless of results for either the functional unit of one kilometer or corridor planning, the relative results show that construction and maintenance & renewal by far are the main sources of potential impacts, and disposal (due to only transport of materials for their end-of-life treatment) has a fraction of impact through the entire lifetime of HSR electrification in all the six-impact categories. The main input materials associated with high impacts in electrification of HSR infrastructure are: copper, diesel, aluminium (cable), steel (low-alloyed), and UPS (batteries) that for different impact categories and life cycle phases the effect from each input material is varying. Copper v Abstract projected that it has the highest contribution in impact categories human toxicity, metal depletion, freshwater eutrophication, and terrestrial acidification in both construction and maintenance & renewal. Aluminium (cable), and steel (low-alloyed) perform their highest contributions in impact categories climate change and photochemical oxidation formation in the construction phase; however, diesel shows a high impact in the same impact categories (as they are the same for aluminium (cable) and steel (low-alloyed)) in the maintenance & renewal phase. Moreover, UPS (batteries), due to having (relatively) high amount of lead, corresponds to high impact in impact categories terrestrial acidification, climate change, and photochemical oxidation formation in the maintenance & renewal life cycle phase. The study also considers the effect of section type and design-speed for the LCA of HSR electrification. It shows that the potential impact (for the most six-impact categories) in a kilometer of tunnel section for system of design-speed Re330 (for the speed up to 330 km/h) is higher than a kilometer of open section for system of design- speed S25 (for the speed up to 250 km/h). In this study, the effect of increase in the resolution of HSR electrification with the previous study of NHSR by Asplan Viak AS in corridor planning is compared that corresponds to increase in potential impacts in all the six-impact categories, which the highest effects are related to impact categories human toxicity, freshwater eutrophication and metal depletion. vi Table of contents CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................. 2 1.2 AIM AND MOTIVATION................................................................................................................. 3 1.3 OUTLINE OF THESIS .................................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................ 7 2.1 LCA OF HSR ELECTRIFICATION ................................................................................................. 7 2.2 SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................. 11 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 15 3.1 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT .......................................................................................................... 15 3.2 TOOLS ....................................................................................................................................... 18 3.3 FRAMEWORK AND GUIDELINE FOR RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE ................................................ 20 CHAPTER 4: CASE STUDY AND SOLUTION APPROACH ......................................................... 23 4.1 BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................................... 23 4.2 DESCRIPTION OF LCA OF HSR ELECTRIFICATION .................................................................... 24 4.2.1 Functional unit (F.U.) ..................................................................................................... 25 4.2.2 System boundary ............................................................................................................. 25 4.2.2.1 Description of section type ................................................................................................... 26 4.2.2.2 Description of design-speed alternative ................................................................................ 26 4.2.2.3 Description of life cycle phase .............................................................................................. 27 4.2.2.3.1 Construction .................................................................................................................... 27 4.2.2.3.2 Maintenance and renewal ................................................................................................ 28 4.2.2.3.3 Disposal ........................................................................................................................... 28 4.2.2.4 Description of Components .................................................................................................. 28 4.2.3 Lifetime ............................................................................................................................ 29 4.2.4 Transportation ................................................................................................................. 30 4.2.4.1 Construction and maintenance & renewal ............................................................................ 30 4.2.4.2 Disposal................................................................................................................................ 31 4.3 DATA COLLECTION .................................................................................................................... 31 4.3.1 Overhead contact system ................................................................................................. 33 4.3.1.1 Catenary .............................................................................................................................. 34 4.3.1.1.1 Contact wire .................................................................................................................... 35 vii Table of contents