EVALUATION MODELS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS OF ENERGY CONVERSION SYSTEMS

ABSTRACT Environmental aspects of energy conversion, in particular the generation of electricity, play an important role in the decision process on energy projects. A decision support model is proposed which distinguished three evaluation levels of environmental aspects: the emission level, the concentration level and the effect level. Multi‐criteria analysis (a combination of the “expected value method” and the “weighted summation”) and graphical presentation methods are used in evaluate the model which is implemented for seven electricity producing energy conversion systems, ranging from nuclear and coal, to oil, gas and wind. These systems are evaluated on the following to environmental criteria: acidification, photo‐chemical pollution, climatic effects, noise, thermal pollution, solid and nuclear waste, land use requirement, risk and visual disturbance.