Life cycle assessment of solar energy conversion into synthetic natural gas for transportation including CO2 capture and dual shipping

Abstract

Renewable energy production in Belgium is highly challenging due to limited land availability. The import of solar energy from regions with high solar irradiation, e.g., the Atacama Desert, via energy vectors such as synthetic natural gas (SNG) produced from CO₂ can be an alternative. In this work, two different CO₂ sources for SNG production were investigated: direct air capture (DAC) (Case 1) and CO₂ capture from a point source (Case 2). This paper aims to assess the environmental impacts of the production and transportation of this energy vector, including CO₂ capture, benchmarked to the conventional natural gas production and its import in Belgium (reference). The results show that Case 1 has a lower impact on climate change and fossil resource use than Case 2 and the reference. However, the impact of Case 1 on other LCA indicators (e.g., freshwater ecotoxicity) is higher than the reference, but lower than Case 2.