Characterizing the fossil fuel impacts in water desalination plants in Kuwait: A Life Cycle Assessment approach Khawla Al-Shayji a , Esra Aleisa b, * a Chemical Engineering Department, College of Petroleum and Engineering, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5969, Safat,13060, Kuwait b Industrial and Management Systems Engineering Department, College of Engineering and Petroleum, Kuwait University, P.O Box 5969, Safat,13060, Kuwait, Kuwait article info Article history: Received 26 December 2017 Received in revised form 11 June 2018 Accepted 12 June 2018 Available online 14 June 2018 Keywords: Desalination Life Cycle Assessment Statistical analysis ANOVA Energy Fossil fuel abstract This study provides a detailed quantified baseline for the environmental effects of desalination in Kuwait. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is applied to model the environmental impacts of all nine desalination plant in the country both using Multistage Flash Desalination (MSF) and Reverse osmosis technologies at two scales: per one ton and on annual production. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is used to investigate which fossil fuel types is significantly contributing to increased environmental burden of desalination. The results indicate that although 12.2% of Kuwait's electrical energy is generated using crude oil, crude oil alone contributes 63% to the global warming. The results also show that desalination in Kuwait con- tributes 7.89Eþ08 kg Sb eq. to abiotic depletion,1.15Eþ08 kg SO 2 eq. to acidification, 1.91Eþ07 kg PO 4 eq. to eutrophication, 2.71Eþ10 kg CO 2 eq. to global warming, 2.47Eþ04 kg CFC-11 eq. to ozone layer depletion, 6.45Eþ09 kg 1,4-DB eq. to human toxicity, 6.03Eþ12 kg 1,4-DB eq. to marine aquatic eco- toxicity, and 7.53Eþ06 kg C 2 H 4 eq. to photochemical oxidation. ANOVA reveals that natural gas has the lowest environmental impact, except on abiotic depletion; and that crude oil contributes almost four times more to global warming than other fuels used. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The widening gap between the consumption and availability of potable water is arguably the greatest sustainability problem worldwide [1], nevertheless it is at its peak in Kuwait [2e5]. The arid climate of Kuwait and its neighboring Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries is characterized by irregular, sparse rainfall (<100 mm/y) and high evaporation rates (>3 K mm/y) [6]. Addi- tionally, GCC countries score the lowest worldwide on the renew- able water resource index [7e9]. The average annual per capita renewable water resources have already reached the so-called chronic water scarcity line (<500 m3 per capita/y) [10]. To satisfy their demands for water, Kuwait and other GCC countries primarily rely on expensive seawater desalination followed by non- renewable groundwater resource extraction [11e 13]. Approxi- mately 81% of the total global desalination production is generated in the GCC alone [14], which has an estimated total production capacity of 4.7 billion m3/y [15]. Kuwait alone accounts for approximately 15% of the total desalination production in the world and 19% of the total GCC desalination production [16]. Despite water scarcity, the per capita water consumption in Kuwait is one the highest worldwide at 500 L/capita/d [17], and an average in- crease of 3.6% per year has been observed (see Fig. 1). Over the past decade, the population of Kuwait has almost tripled; however, water consumption has greatly increased by almost 12-fold during the same period [18]. Many researchers and activists believe that the excessive water consumption is a result of the nominal water/ electricity tariff, which is discounted by 80e90% because of high government subsidies [19,20]. In Kuwait alone, these subsidies amount to $8.8 billion/y [17]. Researchers have argued that gov- ernment subsides of conventional fuel products and electricity also contribute to the slow implementation of renewable energy pro- jects [21]. The predominant desalination technology is thermal, specif- ically, Multistage Flash Desalination (MSF) [5]. Because this tech- nology is energy intensive, it is prevalent mostly in GCC, where fossil fuels have long been available at a relatively low extraction cost [12]. Approximately 50% of the oil production in Kuwait is * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: K.alshayj@ku.edu.kw (K. Al-Shayji), e.aleisa@ku.edu.kw, aleisaE@gmail.com (E. Aleisa). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2018.06.077 0360-5442/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Energy 158 (2018) 681e692