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Low-carbon electricity and heat production is essential for keeping the decarbonization targets and climate mitigation goals. Thus, an accurate understanding of the potential environmental impacts constitutes a key aspect not only for the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions but also for other environmental categories. Life cycle assessment allows us to conduct an overall evaluation of a given process or system through its whole lifetime across various environmental indicators. This study focused on construction, operation and maintenance, and end-of-life phases, which were analyzed based on the ReCiPe 2016 method. Within this work, authors assessed the environmental performance of one of the renewable energy sources—Enhanced Geothermal Systems, which utilize supercritical carbon dioxide as a working fluid to produce electricity and heat. Heat for the process is extracted from hot, dry rocks, typically located at depths of approximately 4–5 km, and requires appropriate stimulation to enable fluid flow. Consequently, drilling and site preparation entail significant energy and material inputs. This stage, based on conducted calculations, exhibits the highest global warming potential, with values between 5.2 and 30.1 kgCO2eq/MWhel, corresponding to approximately 65%, 86%, and 94% in terms of overall impacts for ecosystems, human health, and resources categories, respectively. Moreover, the study authors compared the EGS impacts for the Polish and Norwegian conditions. Obtained results indicated that due to much higher electricity output from the Norwegian plant, which is sited offshore, the environmental influence remains the lowest, at a level of 11.9 kgCO2eq/MWhel. Polish cases range between 38.7 and 54.1 kgCO2eq/MWhel of global warming potential in terms of electricity production. Regarding power generation only, the impacts in the case of the Norwegian facility are two to five times lower than for the installation in the Polish conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to the Paris Agreement and climate change mitigation, Indonesia aims to reach net zero by 2060 or sooner. Due to Indonesia's dependence on coal and growing consumption, alternative sources of clean energy are imperative for meeting its rising energy needs and reducing energy-related greenhouse gas emissions to achieve the energy transition. This project aims to examine Indonesia's opportunities and potential to achieve low carbon ambition in the energy sector and identify alternative pathways for the energy transition in Indonesia. In this study, the open-source energy modelling system (OSeMOSYS), which is a long-term energy system modelling tool, is employed to compare electricity generation, investment, and carbon dioxide emissions between business-as-usual and five alternative scenarios. Six scenarios, including business as usual, least-cost, two coal-phrase out and two net zero aligned with national climate targets and optimal scenarios, were simulated across different target years. The results show that the net zero (NZ) scenario is more cost-effective and emits fewer greenhouse gases than the other scenarios in meeting Indonesia's future energy demand. However, achieving net zero by 2050 (NZ50) results in significantly lower CO2 emissions (10,134 MtCO2), which is less than half of the emissions in the net zero by 2060 (NZ60) scenario (16,849 MtCO2) at a similar cost (6229 and 6177 billion USD, respectively). This paper's insights emphasise that large-scale renewable energy deployment and coal retirement are critical pathways to reaching carbon neutrality and achieving the energy mix transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]