Reducing California's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Through ProductLife-Cycle Optimization

Reducing California's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Through ProductLife-Cycle Optimization PDF Author: Ernst Worrell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Product life-cycle optimization addresses the reduction ofenvironmental burdens associated with the production, use, andend-of-life stages of a product s life cycle. In this paper, we offer anevaluation of the opportunities related to product life-cycleoptimization in California for two key products: personal computers (PCs)and concrete. For each product, we present the results of an explorativecase study to identify specific opportunities for greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions reductions at each stage of the product life cycle. We thenoffer a discussion of the practical policy options that may exist forrealizing the identified GHG reduction opportunities. The case studiesdemonstrate that there may be significant GHG mitigation options as wellas a number of policy options that could lead to life-cycle GHG emissionsreductions for PCs and concrete in California.

Reducing California's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Through ProductLife-Cycle Optimization

Reducing California's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Through ProductLife-Cycle Optimization PDF Author: Ernst Worrell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Product life-cycle optimization addresses the reduction ofenvironmental burdens associated with the production, use, andend-of-life stages of a product s life cycle. In this paper, we offer anevaluation of the opportunities related to product life-cycleoptimization in California for two key products: personal computers (PCs)and concrete. For each product, we present the results of an explorativecase study to identify specific opportunities for greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions reductions at each stage of the product life cycle. We thenoffer a discussion of the practical policy options that may exist forrealizing the identified GHG reduction opportunities. The case studiesdemonstrate that there may be significant GHG mitigation options as wellas a number of policy options that could lead to life-cycle GHG emissionsreductions for PCs and concrete in California.

Optimization of Product Life Cycles to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California

Optimization of Product Life Cycles to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Greenhouse gas mitigation
Languages : en
Pages : 95

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Book Description


Activity-based Allocation and Optimization for Carbon Footprint and Cost in Product Lifecycle

Activity-based Allocation and Optimization for Carbon Footprint and Cost in Product Lifecycle PDF Author: Fangzhi Gui
Publisher: Infinite Study
ISBN:
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Low-carbon design is a sustainable method, which coordinates the carbon footprint, cost and performance of each stage in product lifecycle from the design source to satisfying low-carbon demand. It is also a significant technology to reduce the carbon emission before manufacturing. To effectively and efficiently reduce the carbon emission, a low carbon-oriented design method is studied in product lifecycle.

Decision-Making to Reduce Manufacturing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Decision-Making to Reduce Manufacturing Greenhouse Gas Emissions PDF Author: Corinne Reich-Weiser
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
The manufacturing sector is a significant contributor to environmental damage and resource use, which has potential long-term implications if resources are overused and our air, water, and soil are altered irreversibly. To alleviate these impacts, the manufacturing research community has primarily focused on reducing the environmental impacts of specific manufacturing processes and systems within a factory; however there are opportunities for environmental impact reductions that emerge from a supply chain perspective. For example, researchers have recognized that by taking advantage of regional differences when locating facilities there is the opportunity to alleviate global water scarcity and reduce the human health effects of pollution. We add to this body of work by focusing on the opportunity to take advantage of regional variability to reduce supply chain GHG emissions. Through the development of targeted environmental return-on-investment (ROI) metrics and hybrid life-cycle assessment techniques, we enable the minimization of global greenhouse gas emissions through informed supply chain design. Founded on the premise that GHG emissions are a global problem that can benefit from global optimization, we focus on the tradeoffs between transportation emissions and electricity emissions. A three-pronged approach to management and reduction of GHG emissions in manufacturing is presented: (1) metric design for environmental decision-making (2) comprehensive, repeatable, and efficient life-cycle assessment using a hybrid approach (3) optimization of the system to take advantage of regional tradeoffs. This approach is demonstrated through a generic case study of automotive manufacturing and a case study of SolFocus Inc. concentrated solar photovoltaic panels. The case-studies show that 30-40% of GHG emissions in the supply chain are from electricity and transportation and can be reduced by up to 50% through changes in supplier location. Furthermore, regional variability in electricity emissions means that local manufacturing is not always optimal. Finally, the incorporation of ROI metrics for the SolFocus system presented the most rapid path to global reductions in GHG emissions. Installation of solar technology in Australia results in a savings of nearly 20 kg-CO2eq for every kg-CO2eq emitted during production; whereas the savings from installation in Spain, Northern California, or Arizona is 7-8 kg-CO2eq. This dissertation presents the following new contributions to the field (1) a method for global GHG reductions, separate from product re-design, through optimization of supply chain layout based on transportation and electricity GHG emissions tradeoffs; (2) development of effective and targeted ROI environmental metrics to guide decisions that promote the fastest route to reduce environmental impacts in manufacturing; (3) validation of the feasibility of using of iterative financial hybrid LCA to ensure a comprehensive LCA and guide regional input-output electricity estimates and tradeoffs in key areas; (4) demonstration and development of the greenhouse gas ROI metric, iterative hybrid LCA methodology, and supply chain layout decision-making for concentrator solar PV We note that these supply chain efforts must occur in conjunction with efforts on sustainable product design such as design for remanufacture, improved use-phase efficiencies, or utilization of new materials.

Optimizing Sustainable Product Development

Optimizing Sustainable Product Development PDF Author: Meysam Salari
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
Global warming, which is caused by increasing concentrations of carbon emissions, mainly results from human activities, such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation. In order to alleviate global warming and its adverse effects, many countries including the United States and the European Union members have attempted to enact legislation or design market-based carbon trading mechanisms to control carbon emissions. Analyzing the impact of such governmental legislation on developing products has been studied, both in theory and practice. Firms need to incorporate governmental regulations and consider environmental issues and reduced carbon emission in their product development processes, this thesis presents three models for sustainable product development. All models consider environmental issues and cost for the whole life cycle of the product, from the extraction of raw materials to the end of life of the product. Three group of customer requirements are defined as cost, quality and sustainability. The objective of the models is to maximize utility to the customers for these groups of customer requirements. In all three models, three groups of customer requirements are translated to design specifications and the utility of each group is evaluated. The first model is a scoring model to compare between different designs and select the best one; the second model is an optimization model, which provides optimum value for design specifications while maximizing the total utility to the customers for the final design. And finally, the third model is a two-stage stochastic optimization model in which the weights of customer requirements are considered as uncertain parameters. This model also provides the optimum value for design specifications while modeling the weight of customer requirements as an uncertain parameter. The last two models are non-linear, non-convex models with certain conditions and are solved using the Branch-and-Reduce Optimization Navigator methodology. In all three models, Quality Function Deployment is applied to make trade-offs within each group of customer requirements and multi-attribute utility theory is used to make trade-offs between three groups of customer requirements. All three models are applied to a case study, and results show that introducing uncertainty in the parameters increases the total utility by 9.41%, and the optimization model also has the potential to help designers find an optimum design yielding higher customer satisfaction, reducing the time of product development process and making the final design more reliable based on stakeholder's opinions.

Managing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California

Managing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Climatic changes
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description


The Greenhouse Gas Protocol

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol PDF Author:
Publisher: World Business Pub.
ISBN: 9781569735688
Category : Business enterprises
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard helps companies and other organizations to identify, calculate, and report GHG emissions. It is designed to set the standard for accurate, complete, consistent, relevant and transparent accounting and reporting of GHG emissions.

Role of Residential and Commercial Sectors in Meeting California's 80 Percent GHG Emissions Reduction Goal by 2050

Role of Residential and Commercial Sectors in Meeting California's 80 Percent GHG Emissions Reduction Goal by 2050 PDF Author: Mohammad Saleh Zakerinia
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781321807813
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Climate change is one of the most important issues in today's world, and there is an increasing concern about it. State of California is the leading states in the United States in cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; it sets an objective of achieving 1990 emission level by 2020 and also long-term objective of emission reduction to 80% of 1990 level by 2050. Short-term policies and necessary steps to take in the short term are well-defined, and California is on the right track of achieving 2020 goal. Yet, it is unclear what kind of policies and technological transformation will be needed in order to get to the long-term goal. We use the CA-TIMES model, an economy-wide bottom-up, and technology-rich optimization model, to study the role of commercial and residential sectors in mitigating GHG emissions by 2050. Commercial and residential sectors contribute to 30% of total energy consumption. Therefore, it is very crucial to study the implication of policies in these sectors to reach our long-term goal. There are many energy models developed for California. However, they either do not address cost implications of GHG mitigation in California or lack system modeling approach. These models cannot analyze abatement costs explicitly, consider interactive policies between different sectors of the economy or optimally allocate financial/physical resources. CA-TIMES is the first model that explicitly calculates the cost of mitigation, taken into account different sectors of energy system and their interactions and finds the optimal allocation of money/resources to reach policy target. We defined different scenarios each having a fixed service demand that is driven by economic drivers. We have an elastic demand scenario in which demands change with a change in price of service demands; this may be a more realistic case than the fixed demand. We have performed a decompositions analysis to see the role of efficiency improvement, carbon intensity reduction, and demand reduction in different scenarios. Our results show that the cost of mitigation is much higher with having a binding emission constraint. We have also calculated the realized abatement cost curves that show mitigation costs across different end-uses. The residential and commercial sectors are modeled based on projected energy service demands that are independent of technology and fuels. The residential sector consists of end-use demand technologies used to satisfy thirteen residential end-use service demand, including space heating, space cooling, water heating, lighting, cooking, refrigeration, clothes washing, clothes drying, dish washing, freezer, TV, pool pumps, and miscellaneous. Likewise, the commercial sector end-use demand technologies comprise cooking, lighting, water heating, refrigeration, space cooling and heating, ventilation, office equipment and miscellaneous which are used in our model to satisfy service demand. The model is described by fuel types (e.g. natural gas, electricity, LPG) and end-use technologies (e.g. compact fluorescent lamps, furnace, TV) that meet these service demands. The energy service demands are projected based on assumed drivers that are population, building size, building heating/cooling coefficient, appliance saturation rate, appliance utilization rate and commercial floorspace. Future technology adoption and abatement rely on economic factors (including fuel price changes), consumer choices, technology availability, and policy choices to determine the total state-wide residential and commercial energy use over the time horizon. The model selects technologies to meet energy service demand while minimizing net system cost and satisfying other user-defined constraints such as policy goals in GHG emission targets, appliance efficiency standards, etc. The BAU policy assumes the existing policies do not expire, and they will continue throughout the modeling period until 2050. In the GHG reduction scenario, it is assumed there is a linear carbon cap constraint in addition to the available policies in the BAU scenario. The linear carbon cap assumes the carbon cap would be a straight-line trajectory from 2020 to 2050. CA-TIMES also can be used as a partial equilibrium model. Meaning that service demands are not fixed, and they can be changed based on the elasticities of service demands to their price each year. Under this framework, the model minimizes the welfare loss associated with the change in the service demand. The GHG reduction scenario that runs under this framework is called the GHG-Elastic demand scenario. The residential and commercial sectors show substantial efficiency improvements and reductions in the final energy demand due to the adoption of more efficient technologies as well as technologies that rely on electricity more than natural gas. In 2010, electricity accounted for 57% of commercial energy use and 37% of residential energy consumption. By 2050, electricity's share of final energy is 67% in the commercial sector and 79% in the residential sector under the GHG reduction scenario. Overall, weighted efficiency for commercial and residential sectors is 2.3 and 3.89 times higher in 2050 relative to 2010 in the GHG reduction scenario, respectively. The model can reduce service demand instead of adopting efficient appliances to decrease GHG emissions in the GHG-Elastic demand scenario, which also lead to significant cost saving. So, weighted efficiency improvement for commercial and residential sectors in the GHG-Elastic demand scenario reduces to 2.21 and 3.55 in 2050, respectively. The model do not invest in ground source heat pumps, efficient electric water heaters and other efficient technologies, which are also expensive, to decrease GHG emissions. Instead, the model reduces service demand in various service demands to decrease emissions and abatement costs. Electrification of buildings is interconnected with the increased demand for more low-carbon electricity generation. Under GHG scenarios, carbon intensity of electricity is decreased by 96% in 2050 relative to 2010. The average mitigation costs are $74/tonne CO2e and -$2/tonne CO2e for the residential and commercial sectors, respectively, in the GHG reduction scenario compared with the BAU. The mitigation costs are reduced to $24/tonne CO2e and -$41/tonne CO2e for the residential and commercial sectors, respectively, in the GHG-Elastic demand scenario. Relatively small amount of service demand reduction (on average 4% in both residential and commercial sectors) lead to significant abatement cost reduction in the GHG-Elastic demand compared to the GHG scenario. Therefore, it is crucial to decarbonize the electricity through extensive use of renewables and design proper policies to promote efficiency improvement and reduce service demands to reach 2050 emissions reduction target with relatively low cost.

Has California's Cap-and-Trade Caused a Reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Firm-Level Analysis

Has California's Cap-and-Trade Caused a Reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Firm-Level Analysis PDF Author: Brendan Gerard Timmons
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Climatic changes
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
As part of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, policymakers around the world have implemented or are considering market-based emissions reductions policies like cap-and-trade. In the U.S., the only state with a cap-and-trade program that covers every sector in the economy is California, which has become a global leader in climate policy. Though California's emissions have decreased since the policy was implemented, this decline coincides with other factors, such as the natural gas boom and subsequent drop in natural gas prices, increases in vehicle gas mileage, and the ramping up of renewable portfolio standards. This study seeks to determine if, accounting for these other factors, the decrease in emissions can be attributed to the cap-and-trade program, and if so, how much reduction has come as a result of compliance with the program. I also study whether and how individual facilities comply with the cap. Using panel data for firm-level emissions from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board and accounting for other factors using data from a variety of U.S. government sources, I find that California's cap-and-trade program is associated with a reduction in firms' emissions. However, my results show that this decline may be at least partially attributed to leakage of emissions from California's climate policy regime to other states. Further study and more detailed data is needed to better understand the relationship between firms' emissions, the cap, and leakage.

Industry-Wide Life Cycle Assessment for Improved Decision-Making

Industry-Wide Life Cycle Assessment for Improved Decision-Making PDF Author: Jana Elisabeth-Anna Enking
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Emission reduction in the petrochemical industry is essential to meet climate targets, as the chemical industry is a major contributor to industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) allows for assessing the environmental impacts of alternative production pathways. Still, interlinked industries, such as the petrochemical industry, are difficult to assess in LCA due to the so-called multifunctionality problem. To this end, there are at least two options in LCA to assess industry-wide emissions: a products-wise approach and a product basket-wise approach. Here, we show that optimized technology decisions differ between the two approaches. Optimizing supply chains product-wise leads to 20% to 155% higher greenhouse gas emissions compared to a product basket-wise optimization due to (1) a higher amount of by-products, (2) increased raw material need and processing, and (3) suboptimal technology decisions in the supply chain. In contrast to that, a product basket-wise approach is able to adapt in response to changes in demand. Therefore, this approach has advantages over a product-wise assessment due to its possibility to simultaneously assess multifunctional processes. On the other hand, it might also require a complex model and more data.