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Integration of life cycle emissions from power generation into the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM)-USA
Citation:
Babaee, S., O. Kaplan, AND Dan Loughlin. Integration of life cycle emissions from power generation into the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM)-USA. US Association of Energy Economics Annual Conference, Washington,DC, September 23 - 26, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
This presentation describes research that will be presented at the USAEE annual conference. The main impact of the information presented here is that we demonstrate the utility of using the GCAM-USA integrated assessment model to estimate electricity life cycle emissions. By incorporating state-level energy system details and national-, regional- and state-level policies, this approach creates state-specific emission estimates that vary in time. Typical life cycle analysis uses static, national average values.
Description:
A primary goal of our research is to evaluate the net emission impacts of alternative energy system scenarios. Understanding both the combustion and life cycle emissions associated with electricity generation thus is important. We integrate life cycle emission factors (EFs) for electricity production into the U.S. version of the Global Change Assessment Model, GCAM-USA. The resulting model can estimate not only electric sector emissions from combustion, but also emissions from the associated fuel extraction, processing, transportation, and powerplant construction activities. An advantage of using GCAM-USA in life cycle analysis (LCA) is that it accounts for state-specific conditions, such as existing technology stock and stock turnover, access to renewable resources, and state- and region-specific energy and environmental policies. Thus, our approach has the potential to improve upon LCA methods that use static, national average EFs.