Track: Engineering Management

Abstract

Greenhouse gases from power plants are a threat to society, biodiversity and food security. South Africa is relying on traditional methods such as coal to generate energy. The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts a global increase of greenhouse gases to about 62 billion tons in 2050. In order to reduce greenhouse gases release from power plants, it is necessary to develop GHG (Green House Gas) capture technologies and renewable energies. This research paper is based on the analysis of greenhouse gas technologies which are widely utilised to capture greenhouse emissions from fossil based power generation process. These capture technologies are: amine scrubbing and flue gas desulphurization (semi wet and wet).The research paper covers the following aspects, background of the GHG capture technologies, applications, efficiencies, economies of scale and summary of the operating philosophy. The paper also provides strategies that can be implemented to combat climate change. Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) methodology is used to analyse the input data and simulation of the results. AHP analysis is done on constituencies such as water consumption, reliability, capital expenditure and energy consumption of the greenhouse gas capture technologies. The results indicate that, semi wet scrubber has the optimal cost benefit compared to other capture technologies.