Avoiding climate destabilization caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, requires climate-neutral electricity sources. It has been proposed that the GHG emissions from coal-fired power plants can be offset by carbon capture and sequestration or bio-sequestration. However, solar photovoltaic (PV) technology has recently declined so far in costs it now offers both technical and economic potential to offset all of coal-fired electricity use. PV only emits GHGs during fabrication and not during use. To determine which technical solution to climate-neutral electricity generation should be preferred, this study aggregates and synthesizes life cycle analysis studies for exergy, GHG emissions and land transformation for climate-neutral electricity. The results show that because of lower exergy efficiencies coal plants emit 13-18 times more GHG and transform 5-13 times more land than PV. Optimal bio-sequestration of coal-fired GHG requires 62% of U.S. arable land or 89% of all U.S land with average forest cover. Carbon capture and storage and enhanced oil recovery can improve coal performance, but for all cases the results clearly show that PV is a far more effective use of land. Overall, for the first time this study found climate-neutral photovoltaic farms are a preferred solution to climate-neutral coal fired electricity generation.

中文翻译：

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煤炭与碳捕获和封存的土地利用效率不如用于气候中性电力生产的太阳能光伏技术。

避免温室气体 (GHG) 排放造成的气候不稳定需要气候中性的电力来源。有人提出，燃煤发电厂的温室气体排放可以通过碳捕获和封存或生物封存来抵消。然而，太阳能光伏（PV）技术最近成本已有所下降，目前提供了技术和经济潜力来抵消所有燃煤电力的使用。光伏发电仅在制造过程中排放温室气体，在使用过程中不排放温室气体。为了确定应优先选择哪种气候中性发电技术解决方案，本研究汇总并综合了火用、温室气体排放和气候中性电力土地改造的生命周期分析研究。结果表明，由于火用效率较低，燃煤发电厂排放的温室气体比光伏发电厂多 13-18 倍，转化的土地比光伏发电厂多 5-13 倍。燃煤温室气体的最佳生物封存需要 62% 的美国耕地或 89% 的美国平均森林覆盖土地。碳捕获和储存以及提高石油采收率可以提高煤炭性能，但在所有情况下，结果都清楚地表明光伏是一种更有效的土地利用方式。总体而言，这项研究首次发现气候中性光伏发电场是气候中性燃煤发电的首选解决方案。