ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ECTION DESCRIPTION PAGES
Title page i
Approval page ii
Certification page iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgement v
Abstract vi
Table of Contents vii
List of Figures ix
List of Tables x
Nomenclature xi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 General Background 1
1.2 Definition of Energy and Environmental Impact 3
1.3 Sources of Energy and Environmental Impact 4
1.4 Statement of the problem 9
1.5 Objective of Study 11
1.6 Scope of Study 12
1.7 Delimitation of Study 12
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 13
2.1 Overview 13
2.2 Design, Execute and Evaluate (DEE) Cycle in Engineering 13
2.3 Global Warming/Climate Change and Acid Rain Mitigation 14
2.4 Environmental Impact Model 19
2.5 Energy and Environmental Impact review in Nigeria 20
2.6 Energy and Environmental Impact review in other parts of the World 26
2.7 Efforts on Various Energy Sources to Minimize Environmental Impact 28
2.8 Technical Survey for Future Energy Sustainability 38
2.9 Environmental Control by Governance, Assessment, Policy & Regulation 40
2.10 Best Available Technology (BAT) 41
2.11 Alternative Energy and Environmental Impact 42
2.12 Relative New Concept of Alternative Energy and Environmental Impact 42
2.13 Sustainability of Energy and Environmental Impact 44
2.14 Review of Some Optimized Energy Mix Studies 45
2.15 Least Developed Country Optimized Energy Mix Model 50
2.16 Optimized Energy Mix Model with Renewables for India 51
2.17 Modeling Croatian Energy Mix For CO2 Emissions Impacts Reduction 52
2.18 Optimized Long Term Planning Energy Mix Model in Mid-West (USA) 53
2.19 Optimization Energy Mix in Germany 54
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2.20 Optimization Model for Energy Mix generation in Singapore 55
2.21 Optimization Design District Energy Mix System in Switzerland 57
2.22 Multi Period Planning Optimized Energy Mix Model in Canada 59
2.23 Hydro-Thermal-Wind Energy Mix Model in Portugal 62
2.24 Justification for Optimization of Energy Mix to Minimize Environmental Impact 68
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 70
3.1 Field case Study 70
3.2 Optimization Linear Programming Energy Mix Model 70
3.3 Collection of the Relevant Information as data for Optimization 71
3.4 Mathematical Expressions and Modeling 73
3.5 Sensitivity Analysis 76
3.6 Comparison of Optimized Solution Result with Present Energy Supply 77
3.7 Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Emission 77
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULT AND DISCUSSION 82
4.1 Case Study on Optimization Energy Mix Subject to Environmental Constraints in Port-Harcourt 82
4.2 Units of Energy 82
4.3 Presentation of Data Relevant to Optimization Case Study Solution 83
4.4 Calculation of Global Warming Potential Gas Linearity 84
4.5 Optimization Energy Mix to Minimize Environmental Impact 93
4.6 Sensitivity Analysis 97
4.7 Verification and Comparison of Optimized Solution Result 127
4.8 Cost Analysis 135
4.9 Estimation of Green-House Gas Emission Reduction 135
4.10 Justification of result as Solution to Problem 138
4.11 Implication of Study 139
4.12 Implication of Findings 139
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 140
5.1 Conclusion 140
5.2 Recommendation 140
References 141
Appendix 154
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 GENERAL BACKGROUND
Environmental engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to improve the
environment (air, water, and/or land resources), to provide healthy habitation for human and other
organisms; and to remediate polluted sites (Reible, 1998). Environmental engineers address local
and worldwide environmental issues such as the effects of acid rain, global warming, ozone
depletion, water pollution and air pollution (Beychok, 1967). Environmental Engineers also ensure
clean healthy energy generation and utility to avoid issues that could jeopardize the environment.
Environmental Engineers are daily faced with challenges of how to control environmental pollution
of different kind. Pollution is defined as the introduction of contaminants into a natural environment
that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living
organisms and pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy (Webster’s, 2010).
The aim of environmentally friendly system is to prevent, mitigate and eliminate consequent
generation of pollution of any kind. The aim of any environmental management and control is to
keep the whole universe safe and healthy for all co-habitants. The Environmental management
system is a tool to accomplish quality, health, environmental and safety goals (Occidental, 2000).
One of the greatest global problems currently facing humanity is how to cope with the
environmental problems arising from the discovery, production and utilization of the energy system.
As human population increases and as humans continue to evolve, human activity modifies the
natural environment at a rapidly increasing rate, producing what is referred to as built environment.
It is the potential of the natural environment to sustain these anthropogenic changes while
continuing to function as an ecosystem. As human population and desire increases, the
manufacturing and consumption of both manufactured and natural resources increased
tremendously. Thus more energy is needed, but considering that most present worldwide sources of
energy are not renewable, they are getting depleted. Secondly, most of the current sources of energy
are not environmentally friendly. Subsequently, the target is economic benefit of successful energy
source that has environmental safety advantages because there has been regular global summit on
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how to source energy in compliance with environmental regulations to stop destroying or altering
ecology.
Environmental Engineers apply scientific and engineering principles to evaluate if there is
likelihood of any adverse impacts to water quality, air quality, habitat quality, flora and fauna,
agricultural capacity, traffic impacts, social impacts, ecological impacts, noise impacts, visual
(landscape) impacts, etc. If impacts exist or are expected, then measures are developed to limit or
prevent such impacts. This is the essence of this study on optimized energy mix subject to
environmental impact constraints at least cost.
The environmental impact of energy system arose from the development of energy system which is
similar to the development of agriculture from the primitive (early-man stage) to the current
mechanized farming. At the early stage because of less population with little demand the early-man
goes to hunt for food only when he is hungry but as time goes on and he cannot cope with this he
introduced domestic stock. When the demand grew further because of increased population he
developed mechanized animal and plant husbandry. In the same vein, the early-man in the prehistoric
stage uses fire-wood as the only source of energy but as time progressed because of
increasing population demand and need for preservation as he cannot go to hunt for this energy
when it is urgent, he developed the charcoal as better preserved source of energy. From this, it was
not difficult to discover coal as another source of energy because coal resembles charcoal and moreover
by this time he did not have enough technique and technology to discover and handle other
sources of energy. But even with technological advancement that paved way for the discovery of
petroleum product, the volume of environmental impact was not an issue at that earlier stage
because of the quantity of pollutant concentration compared to the distribution in the entire globe.
As population grew and energy demand and use especially from fossil fuel increased, the quantity
of pollutants increased and saturated the universe with high concentration of environmental impact
to alarming rate that there is inherent global warming, climate change, ozone layer depletion,
deforestation, acid rain, etc. So the issue now is not just having energy available, but using energy
with minimal environmental impact. As the environmental consequences of energy production and
utilization are well known to include global warming, oil spills, acid rain, smog, and acid mine
drainage – as only a few of the problems caused by our dependence on coal, petroleum, and natural
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gas; transition from dependant on fossil fuel products to alternative energy sources is expected
through optimize environmental impact minimization.
The important and trust of this work is optimization of energy mix to satisfy environmental impact
compliance at least cost and producing water from moisture for agriculture. The application of this
work is in government policy on energy production that favours optimized more environmental
friendly energy mix rather than depending on one exhaustible polluting fossil fuel source of energy.
1.2 DEFINITION OF ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
In everyday language the word energy, is used loosely with words like work, power, fuel and
energy is often used interchangeably with work, power or fuel incorrectly. Energy is defined as
ability or capacity of matter or radiation to do work while power is the rate of doing work and fuel
is a source material for burning and sustaining energy. On the other hand, energy environmental
impact is degradation of global environment by activities and other influences of humans on the
universe through the energy system used by human. It also covers other aspects of human damage
to the environment such as pollution, deforestation, desertification and habitat loss. Environmental
impact of energy systems has manifested in other different forms that includes climate change,
depletion of the ozone layer and carbon-dioxide emission. Hence, Environmental impact is mostly
used to describe the negative environmental effects of a system or certain actions. Thus,
environmental impacts are certain actions that are significantly affecting the quality of the global
environment (NEPAnet, 1970).
In order to sustain life and carry out successful activity for living, we need energy to operate our
systems. Our society and industry relies on large amount of energy. But in some cases in life, we
end up creating more problems in an attempt to solving other problems as often efforts aimed at
achieving positive result makes the problem more complicated. The fundamental reason for having
any energy system is to alleviate human problem and raise standard of living. A contrary situation
in which energy system designed to reduce human problem inflicts pains on humanity by impacting
negatively on the environment means that the aim has been defeated and appears like “robbing Peter
to pay Paul syndrome” which should be discouraged. Energy systems should improve human
standard of living; mitigate or prevent environmental impact rather than the opposite. Therefore,
cost optimization of energy mix subject to environmental impact constraints is mitigating the
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adverse effect of energy system in our environment by sorting ways energy system can be more
environmentally friendly or used with less adverse effect by minimizing their impact.
Environmentally friendly (eco-friendly, nature friendly, green) are synonyms used to refer to goods
and services considered to inflict minimal or no harm on the environment (Webster’s, 2010).
1.3 SOURCES OF ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Table-1.1 shows different sources of energy and applications while Figure-1.1 shows chart of world
sources of energy in 2007 which indicates that in 2007 primary sources of energy consisted of
36.0% petroleum, 27.4% coal, 23.0% natural gas, amounting to an 86.4% share for fossil fuels in
primary energy consumption in the world (EIA U.S. International Energy Statistics, 2010). Nonfossil
sources in 2006 included hydroelectric 6.3%, nuclear 8.5%, and others (geothermal, solar,
tide, wind, wood, waste) amounting to 0.9 percent. World energy consumption was growing about
2.3% per year.
It is stated that apart from nuclear energy all other forms of energy result from solar energy (Nios,
2012). Fossil fuels, bio-fuels and natural gas are in effect “bottled” solar energy. The wind and
rivers which provide renewable energy are the result of solar energy reacting with the earth’s
atmosphere. This means that primary energy from the sun and nuclear are being transformed to
different forms (Deppe, 2011).
Table-1.1: Energy sources and applications.
Natural Resources Energy-Related Uses Others
Solar Energy Electricity (PV cells), water heating Natural lighting, drying
Wind Energy Electricity (Windmills, propulsion, e.g., yachts) Drying
Hydro Energy Electricity (hydro dams), Watermills Drinking, washing
Geothermal Electricity (stream driven turbines), heating Traditional cooking, bathing.
Tidal / Wave Energy Electricity (various types of tidal generators) Surfing!
Hydrogen Energy Vehicles, Energy Storage
Wood Energy Heating, cooking Building, planting trees as carbon sinks
Coal Energy Electricity (Thermal power stations), heating, Steam driven locomotives, ships
Natural Gas Energy Electricity (Thermal power stations), heating, cooking, water heating, transport (LPG) Methanol production, other chemicals?
Petroleum (Oil) Transport, Electricity (Thermal power stations) Petrochemical products
Nuclear (Uranium) Electricity (Nuclear power stations), propulsion (ships, submarines) Weapons
1 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel
Figure-1.1 World Sources of Energy in 20071
1 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel
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The sources of environmental impact of energy are the harvesting, processing, distributing and
utility of the different energy sources as shown in Figure-1.2. For instance the exploration,
production, distribution, refinery and consumption of fossil fuels releases carbon, sulphur, nitrogen,
heavy-metals that produces Co2, Co, Sox, Nox, etc which causes global warming, acid rain and other
forms of pollution. Environmental impacts also come from geothermal energy as it extracts some
dangerous minerals and can create geological instability, even causing earthquakes (Bertani and
Thain, 2002). Hydro-energy source disturbs the aquatic habitat and can cause deforestation. Nuclear
energy poses a security threat to the environment with arms and hazardous accident.
Figure-1.2: Source of Environmental Impact by Energy2.
There are many environmental issues with energy caused by human activity in the natural world
resulting from the use of natural resources. This has brought dire warnings to sustainability issues as
observed by a variety of science based groups (EIA, 2006) with the largest being climate change
due predominantly to the burning of fossil fuels and the direct impact of greenhouse gases on the
Earth’s environment. Other energy-related environmental problems include the impacts on
ecosystems and land-use from hydroelectric dams; the management of radioactive wastes from
nuclear power plants; and the risks of spillage from transporting oil. Figure-1.3 shows Fossil Fuel
CO2 emission in 2006 in USA. Figure 1.4c shows Gulf of Mexico Vermilion-380 Oil Rig burnt
offshore in USA in 2010 during petroleum drilling (1.4a shows the Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig prior to
the fire incident). Figure-1.4b shows aquatic birds affected by oil spillage on the sea. Figure 1.4d
shows oil spillage offshore during petroleum crude oil production while Figure-1.5 and Table-1.2
show solar energy radiation.
2 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain
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Yearly Solar fluxes & Human Energy Consumption
Solar 3,850,000 EJ
Wind 2,250 EJ
Biomass 3,000 EJ
Primary energy use (2005) 487 EJ
Electricity (2005) 56.7 EJ
Former United States Vice President, Al Gore has called global warming “the greatest
environmental challenge of the 21st century” (Canada Government, 2000). The term ‘global
warming’ can be misleading as it suggests the primary concern is average temperature. However,
temperature is the least significant aspect of the multitude of consequences of worldwide warming.
Several current trends demonstrate that global warming is having a direct impact upon rising sea
levels, the melting of icecaps and other significant worldwide climate changes. Global warming has
significant effects on crops and weather conditions around the world. Most climate models predict
faster heating. If global warming trends continue, higher temperatures may reduce agricultural
productivity. Many people associate global warming with the melting of the polar icecaps. This is a
significant problem as a large number of the world’s cities are built in coastal areas. There are two
major causes of rising sea levels. Firstly, additional water is produced when ice melts; and secondly,
the natural expansion of seawater as it becomes warmer. It has been estimated that even with the
level of greenhouse gases present today, the earth may warm enough in the next 50 years to melt the
Figure-1.3: 2006 Emission from Fossil Fuel3
Table-1.2: Energy from the Sun5
Figure-1.5: Sun Energy Distribution5
Fig-1.4(a) Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig 4 Fig-1.4(b) Birds affected by Oil spill4
Fig-1.4(c) Burnt Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig4 Fig-1.4(d) Oil spill on Sea4
3 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission _fossil fuel
4 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_explosion
5 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar Energy
6
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ice located at the poles. Changes associated with rising sea levels are very diverse. Warmer oceans
cause more intense storms and experts believe that global warming could increase the intensity of
hurricanes by over 50 percent.
Odjugo (2005) quantified the cost of climate change impact in Nigeria whose root cause is global
warming resulting from energy negative impact. His study regrets that most great wind and
rainstorms related hazards like flooding, gully erosions, destruction of life and properties are
problems emanating from environmental impact of energy. Nigeria has witnessed too much
flooding incident in 2012. In USA Hurricane Andrew’s devastation in 1992 set new destruction
records and the intensity of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 surpassed Andrew. In 2012, USA, etc
witnessed big flooding. Damage to be caused by future hurricanes, rainstorms, flooding, gully
erosion etc will be more severe because higher sea levels are predicted in the next century. In
addition, as the oceans rise coastal erosion is evidenced, particularly on steep banks. Wetlands are
lost as sea levels rise. Also, there is a serious problem with the threat of salt water intruding into
underground fresh water reserves in coastal areas. A report published by the United Nations in
1992, predicts that if CO2 and other greenhouse gases continue to be emitted at present rates, sea
levels will rise by 0.6 meters by the year 2100. This would result in flooding of the coastal plains of
Bangladesh and the Netherlands, and the islands of the Maldives will completely disappear.
The environmental impact of energy mostly manifest in the following major ways:
(i). Acid Rain and (ii). Global Warming
a). Acid Rain: “Acid rain” is a popular term referring to the deposition of wet (rain, snow, sleet,
fog, cloud-water, dew) and dry (acidifying particles and gases) acidic components. Acid rain is a
rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it possesses elevated
levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). It can have harmful effects on human, animal, plants, aquatic
animals, and infrastructure. Acid rain is caused by emissions of compounds of ammonium, carbon,
nitrogen, and sulfur which react with the water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids that
are harmful to living organisms (Beer, 1955). He stated that the pollutants come from energy
sources like Coal, Crude Oil, Natural gas and Geothermal Energy. The study suggested withdrawal
from energy sources that generate such pollutant (Likens, 1986). A common example of acid rain is
nitric acid produced by electric discharge in the atmosphere such as lightning that forms carbonic
acid by the reaction (Likens et al, 1987).
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b). Climate Change / Global Warming: Climate change is the variation in global or regional
climates over time. It reflects changes in the variability or average state of the atmosphere over time
scales ranging from decades to millions of years. These changes can be caused by processes internal
to the Earth, external forces (e.g. variations in sunlight intensity) or, more recently, human activities
(Brunt et al, 2011). Although Climate can be contrasted to weather, but while Climate in a narrow
sense is usually defined as the “average weather,” the difference between climate and weather is
usefully summarized by the popular phrase “Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get
(Ledley et al, 1999). Climates encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric
pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elements in a given
region over long periods of time.
In recent usage, the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC) uses the term
“climate variability” for non-human caused variations while “climate change” often refers only to
changes in modern climate, including the rise in average surface temperature known as global
warming presumably caused by human activity (Hawkins and Pausas, 2004). Attribution of recent
climate change is the effort to scientifically ascertain mechanisms responsible for recent changes
observed in the Earth’s climate. The mechanisms attributed all result from human activity as follows
(Solomon et al, 2007):
· Increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases;
· Global changes to land surface, such as deforestation; and
· Increasing atmospheric concentrations of aerosols of small particles or droplets suspended in
the atmosphere like soot or airborne sulfates, nitrates, and ammonium from industrial air
pollution.
Scientific consensus has identified carbon dioxide as the dominant greenhouse gas forcing. The
dominant greenhouse gas overall is water vapor. Water vapor, however, has a very short
atmospheric lifetime (about 10 days) and is very nearly in a dynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere,
so it is not a forcing gas in the context of global warming (Schmidt, 2005). Methane and nitrous
oxide are also major forcing contributors to the greenhouse effect. The Kyoto Protocol lists these
together with hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)
(UNFCCC, 1992) which are entirely artificial (i.e. anthropogenic) gases which also contribute to
radiative forcing in the atmosphere. The chart of Figure-1.6 shows that the major causes and
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contributors to greenhouse effect include agricultural by-products like land-use biomass burning,
methane from enteric fermentation and nitrous oxide from fertilizer use. It also shows that energy
harvesting, generation, production, distribution, processing and utility at power station, industrial
process, transportation, residential, commercial and other sources that burn coal or other fossil fuels
are the major causes of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. An essay in Science surveyed 928
abstracts related to climate change, and concluded that most journal reports accepted the consensus
(Oreskes, 2004). A 2002 paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research says “Our analysis suggests
that the early twentieth century global warming is largely caused by changes in greenhouse gases,
like sulphates and others from energy (Tett et al. 2002).
In 1996, in a paper in Nature titled “A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the
atmosphere”, Benjamin D. Santer et al wrote: “The observed spatial patterns of temperature change
in the free atmosphere from 1963 to 1987 are similar to those predicted by state-of-the-art climate
models incorporating various combinations of changes in carbon dioxide, anthropogenic sulphate
aerosol and stratospheric ozone concentrations partially due to human activities (Santer et al, 1996).
1.4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS
The incorporation of environmental considerations to energy production and use has become an
important new area for energy planners. Energy production and use can be major sources of
serious environmental impacts. These impacts, in turn, can threaten the overall social and
economic development objectives that energy use is thought to promote. Examples of such
dilemmas abound. At the regional and global levels, fossil fuels consumption lead to acid rain and,
most likely, to global warming; both phenomena could disrupt natural systems and economic
Figure-1.6: The Major Causes and Contributors to Greenhouse Effect6
6 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change
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productivity. At the local level, continued reliance on traditional biomass fuels, in many developing
countries, can place added stress on woodlands and farmlands, further contributing to soil erosion and
habitat loss, and can lead to high levels of indoor air pollution.
Part of the problem is that the growing human population and desire for a better standard of life is
causing incremental demand and use of energy to an alarming rate that is causing pollution of the
globe with harmful waste. Ordinarily if the human population and the desire for higher standard of
living are very minimal, the demand and use of energy will be minimal too and this will also cause
reduced environmental impact. Thus, there is an imbalance as the universal natural system is
finding the rate of pollution generation by energy systems high to get ride off without harmful effect
to the inhabitant of the earth. Table-1.3 shows environmental impacts from different energy sources.
Table-1.3: Energy sources and their respective Environmental impact.
As there is no perfect system (though theoretically ideal situation is considered), another point
viewed as the problem is that the world is yet to discover any sustainable source of energy, that is,
100% environmentally friendly that does not have any impact to the environment in one way or
another. Thirdly, the most available, affordable and reliable sources of energy are the ones that are
more prone to environmental impact while the energy sources that appear more environmentally
friendly are not greatly favoured by availability, affordability and reliability to serve the world
increasing population. Environmental issues are negative aspects of human activity on the
biophysical environment. Environmental impacts of energy are how different energy sources affect
the environment negatively. Major environmental impact may include climate change, depletion of
the ozone layer, carbon-dioxide emission, deforestation, desertification, pollution, environmental
degradation, resource depletion etc. No source of energy is completely free of environmental
Energy Source Environmental Impact
Firewood Causes deforestation, when used in-door smoke from it not healthy
Charcoal Deforestation, causes serious health problem if used indoors, threatens survival of gorillas
Coal Energy Harmful mining, large CO2 emission, Acid rain, Ash, degradation of land & water
Petroleum-Oil Toxicity, CO2 emission, destruction of vegetation land, air and water pollution
Natural Gas Greenhouse gas far more potent than CO2, gas is more difficulty to handle
Wind Energy Causes obstruction, unsightly eyesore, noisy, interferes with radar; affect birds, weather forecast
Hydro-Energy Habitation degradation for both aquatic and land, devastating effect in case of failure
Tidal Energy Affect aquatic ecosystems like birds that rely on low tides to unearth mud flats used as feeding
Solar Energy Currently expensive, it’s not available at night bad weather condition.
Nuclear Energy Poisonous and highly radioactive, posed safety and security threat
Geothermal Extracts pollutant like sulfur underneath the earth. create geological instability, as earthquakes
Biomass Energy Combustion pollutes environment. Biomass vegetation production pose competition with food
Hydrogen Energy Hydrogen is expensive to produce, difficult to handle, store, and transport
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impact. There are many environmental issues with energy with the largest being climate change due
predominantly to the burning of fossil fuels and the direct impact of greenhouse gases on the global
environment. The burning of fossil fuels produces around 21.3 billion Tons of carbon dioxide
yearly, but it is estimated that natural processes can only absorb half of that amount, so there is a net
increase of 10.65 billion Tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide yearly. Carbon dioxide is one of the
greenhouse gases that enhances radiative forcing and contributes to global warming, causing the
average surface temperature of the Earth to rise in response, which climate scientists agree is
causing major adverse effects. According to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, in 2004 natural
gas produced about 5,300 Billion Ton/yr of CO2 emissions, while coal and oil produced 10,600 and
10,200 respectively. Scientist has also discovered in 2009 changes in the glacier temperature which
they attributed to climate change and global warming from carbon based energy (NOAA, 2009).
On the contrary, as there is a saying that “waste is wealth” especially re-usable waste, there are
some positive environmental impacts of energy. As a positive environmental impact from fossil
fuel, the natural gas produced from petroleum production can be used for petroleum and gas well
reservoir pressure maintenance (Ajoku, 2010). Also Landfill gas production that results from
chemical reactions and microbes acting upon bio-degradable waste as the putrescible materials can
be produced as useful biogas (Burdekin, 2003). The ash produced from firewood, oil, coal, charcoal
etc as environmental waste could be used as profit to produce fertilizer, manure, make soap,
pesticide, control algae pond, ethanol production; and to shine silver material. The moisture
produced as environmental degrading waste from firewood or any other energy source production
will be collected as water for much usefulness such as agriculture.
1.5 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The objective of this work is to find how environmental impact arising from energy system can be
minimized. The objective of the project is to have elaborate study on the different energy sources
with objective targeted on investigating their respective environmental impact and find ways to
minimize negative environmental impact as follows:
a). To collect relevant data.
b). To calculate linearity of model component.
c). To formulate linear equations.
d). To use linear programming optimization model to obtain the solution of the optimized energy mix.
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e). Performing sensitivity analysis.
f). To verify results by using field data.
g). To compare results with other techniques.
h). Applications.
1.6 SCOPE OF STUDY
The scope of this work therefore is to provide a theoretical framework on the different forms of
energy systems with their respective environmental impact and try to find ways of mitigating
environmental impact. In order to achieve a measurable result, this work is making a case study. As
Port Harcourt is popularly called the “Oil-City” which means it is the central city for petroleum
exploration, production, refinery and utilization in West African region, this work is using Port-
Harcourt City as a field case study on how to minimize environmental impact of energy system?
The work scope include(s) sorting for software(s) model(s) with available data that provide
information on how to minimize environmental impact of energy system. This work targets United
Nations Framework on Climate Change Kyoto Protocol climate summit goal of minimizing energy
emission pollution by 10-15% by 2012. This work is aimed at being realistic rather than being just
idealistic.
1.7 DELIMITATION OF STUDY
In this project there are some limitation problems encountered as data acquisition is relatively
difficult characterized by our people degree of awareness, enlightenment, education, culture and
tradition. The limitation has been imposed by the fear some people have that somebody may
incriminate them. Thus, it was not easy to get some reliable and accurate information relating to
energy and environmental from people because some people are pessimistic and scared of releasing
information for fear that such will be used against them. Even some of those who are already in the
energy and environmental sector are afraid to release information because of the feeling that one
will remove them from business. Also in Nigeria some data are not in existence. For instance,
because of poor electrical energy performance evident by epileptical electrical energy supply in
Nigeria there is no accurate recordable data on electricity lost on transmission; and as such it is not
yet possible to quantify accurately the percentage of electricity lost in transmission (λ) in Nigeria.
Even the fuel conversion efficiency η is questionable. Also Nigeria does not have in existence GHG
emission reduction credit transaction fee estimate (ecr).
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