In the next future coal will play an increasing important role in electricity production due to the abundant reserves worldwide. In order to design new production scenarios. environmental issues have to be carefully considered. We used Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to compare, from an environmental point of view, six scenarios of electricity production by combustion of coal, coal cleaning by-products, biomass and petroleum coke. considering two existing combustion plants, de-NO, and de-SOx processes and coal ash valorisation options. The results showed that the more environmentally responsible scenarios include biomass co-combustion and gas treatment techniques and enlightened some options for further improvements. Finally the results confirmed the usefulness of LCA in the environmental innovation of industrial systems. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.