The reduction of greenhouse gases' emissions (especially CO2) from power plants is a subject of great debate. In order to design sustainable electricity production scenarios, the reduction options have to be assessed from an environmental life cycle perspective. In this paper, a life cycle assessment of (i) four scenarios of coal based electricity production, including coal and biomass (waste or cultivated) co-firing and combustion, flue gas CO2 capture and coal ash valorisation and (ii) one hypothetical scenario of biomass combustion were conducted. The results showed that biomass co-combustion is always environmentally better than the sole CO2 capture and/or biomass combustion. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.