Lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions for an ethanol production process based on genetically modified cyanobacteria: CO 2 sourcing options
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Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology↗
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Consequential Analysis of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impacts of Actions That Influence the Electric Grid: The Theory and Practice of Using Marginal Emissions Rates
This paper discusses consequential greenhouse gas emissions analysis for actions that influence the electric grid that is, the analytical approach of estimating how such actions change greenhouse gas emissions, relative to what they otherwise would have been without the action. Although the paper starts with general considerations, it ultimately focuses on consequential analysis with marginal emissions rates as an option likely more scalable than others.
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
Development of Laboratory Testbeds Simulating Real-World Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Climate change leads to drastic variations in the environment that can threaten food security. To protect the security and prosperity of the environment, new agricultural practices that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions need to be developed. Agriculture plays a large role in the emissions of greenhouse gases, thus a need for new practices. At present, testing landscape management practices for carbon sequestration and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions are expensive because such tests often require intricate field experiments. Laboratory tests on landscape management practices often fail to simulate and accurately represent the natural systems researchers intend to study. There are methods that can be used to make these laboratory tests more closely replicate natural systems for the improvement of agricultural lands used in biofuel and food production. The goal of this project is to develop a laboratory testbed replicating field conditions that will mimic field greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve this goal, we used soil cores taken from agricultural and marginal lands, then attached fiberglass wicks to improve the drainage system in the soil core to simulate a more natural hydraulic system. The soil cores with the wicks were used to compared to greenhouse gas emissions observed in the field. Our preliminary results suggest that the soil carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide flux from the agricultural land site were comparable to the soil cores equipped with the drainage wicks. The data suggests that laboratory testbeds can be used to mimic field greenhouse gas emissions if parameters, such as soil water content were in a set range. The laboratory testbed produces similar greenhouse gas emissions to the agricultural site when the soil water content was between 15-25%.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Development of Laboratory Testbeds Simulating Real-World Greenhouse Gas Emissions [Slides]
In this presentation, I discussed the development of laboratory test beds that simulate field greenhouse gas emissions. Field experiments are used to test new landscape management practices that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, field experiments are very expensive and time consuming. Laboratory experiments are generally more cost efficient and timesaving. There are methods that can be used to make these laboratory tests more closely replicate natural systems for the improvement of agricultural lands used in biofuel and food production. The goal of this project is to develop a laboratory testbed that will mimic field greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve this goal, we used soil cores taken from agricultural and marginal lands, then attached fiberglass wicks to improve the drainage system in the core to simulate a more natural hydraulic system. The combination of using native soils and fiberglass wicks should demonstrate similar greenhouse gas emissions between the lab and the field. Our preliminary results suggest that the carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide flux from the agricultural land site were comparable to the greenhouse soil cores equipped with the drainage wicks. The data suggests that laboratory testbeds can be used to mimic field greenhouse gas emissions if parameters, such as soil water content are in a set range.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Framework for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Planning: Industrial Portfolios
The Framework for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Planning: Industrial Portfolios articulates a process to help industrial organizations develop a specific, actionable plan to achieve Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction – an Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP). An ERP covers an entire portfolio of facilities, yet contains enough detail to be practically useful at the facility level.
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
Life Cycle Analysis of Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the Niagaran Reef Complex CO 2 -EOR Operations
A greenhouse gas emissions life cycle analysis (LCA) was completed for 22 years of carbon dioxide-enhanced oil recovery (CO 2 -EOR) operations at the Niagaran reef complex in the northern Michigan Basin based on research by the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP). The objective of the greenhouse gas LCA was to account for the total greenhouse gas emissions generated through the CO 2 -EOR process..
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Enabling Technology - Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy Demands in the Meat Production Industry via Scaling Advanced 3D Culture Bioreactors
The project “Enabling Technology - Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Energy Demands in the Meat Production Industry via Scaling Advanced 3D Culture Bioreactors” focuses on developing transformational and disruptive food technologies, specifically in the area of alternative protein and meat production techniques. The impetus for developing alternative protein technologies include reducing intensive greenhouse gas emissions and energy/land/water usages associated with conventional meat production (animal agriculture). Additional rationales include providing alternatives to livestock rearing as a means of reducing antimicrobial resistance (most antibiotic and antimicrobial use occurs in food-producing animals), as well as the transmission of zoonotic diseases. The goal of this ARPA-E project was to research and develop novel and effective technologies to produce cell-cultured meat (also named in vitro meat, cultivated meat). Cell-cultured meat is an alternative protein or meat technology that involves directly growing muscle and fat tissues (which comprise meat) without using the full animal. This offers benefits in terms of animal welfare (elimination of animal slaughter), while also being projected to be more resource efficient in terms of metrics such as land use and greenhouse gas emissions, especially when compared to beef and lamb. Cell cultured meat additionally offers greater control over the cultivated cells, enabling more precise control over nutrition and taste. For example, cultured cells could be tuned to produce antioxidants such as carotenoids to improve human health. However, to date there are no scalable methods of producing cell-cultured meat cheaply at a large scale.
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting in Buildings
Buildings account for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. In order to aid in better decisions that reduce emissions from building operations, accurate emissions accounting is important. This fact sheet reviews existing operational GHG emission accounting approaches, frameworks, and data sources and provides recommendations while using an emissions accounting framework.
accounting frameworks↗
Deep learning-based spatio-temporal estimate of greenhouse gas emissions using satellite data
Accurate estimation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions is very important for developing mitigation strategies to climate change by controlling and reducing GHG emissions. This project aims to develop multiple deep learning approaches to estimate anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions using multiple types of satellite data. NO2 concentration is chosen as an example of GHGs to evaluate the proposed approach. Two sentinel satellites (sentinel-2 and sentinel-5P) provide multiscale observations of GHGs from 10-60m resolution (sentinel-2) to ~kilometer scale resolution (sentinel-5P). Among multiple deep learning (DL) architectures evaluated, two best DL models demonstrate that key features of spatio-temporal satellite data and additional information (e.g., observation times and/or coordinates of ground stations) can be extracted using convolutional neural networks and feed forward neural networks, respectively. In particular, irregular time series data from different NO 2 observation stations limit the flexibility of long short-term memory architecture, requiring zero-padding to fill in missing data. However, deep neural operator (DNO) architecture can stack time-series data as input, providing the flexibility of input structure without zero-padding. As a result, the DNO outperformed other deep learning architectures to account for time-varying features. Overall, temporal patterns with smooth seasonal variations were predicted very well, while frequent fluctuation patterns were not predicted well. In addition, uncertainty quantification using conformal inference method is performed to account for prediction ranges. Overall, this research will lead to a new groundwork for estimating greenhouse gas concentrations using multiple satellite data to enhance our capability of tracking the cause of climate change and developing mitigation strategies.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
A review of trends and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions by sector from 1990 to 2018
Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be traced to five economic sectors: energy, industry, buildings, transport and AFOLU (agriculture, forestry and other land uses). In this topical review, we synthesize the literature to explain recent trends in global and regional emissions in each of these sectors. To contextualize our review, we present estimates of GHG emissions trends by sector from 1990 to 2018, describing the major sources of emissions growth, stability and decline across ten global regions. Overall, the literature and data emphasize that progress towards reducing GHG emissions has been limited. The prominent global pattern is a continuation of underlying drivers with few signs of emerging limits to demand, nor of a deep shift towards the delivery of low and zero carbon services across sectors. We observe a moderate decarbonization of energy systems in Europe and North America, driven by fuel switching and the increasing penetration of renewables. By contrast, in rapidly industrializing regions, fossil-based energy systems have continuously expanded, only very recently slowing down in their growth. Strong demand for materials, floor area, energy services and travel have driven emissions growth in the industry, buildings and transport sectors, particularly in Eastern Asia, Southern Asia and South-East Asia. An expansion of agriculture into carbon-dense tropical forest areas has driven recent increases in AFOLU emissions in Latin America, South-East Asia and Africa. Identifying, understanding, and tackling the most persistent and climate-damaging trends across sectors is a fundamental concern for research and policy as humanity treads deeper into the Anthropocene.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Cradle-to-Grave Lifecycle Analysis of Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Light-Duty Passenger Vehicles in China: Towards a Carbon-Neutral Future
Vehicle electrification is considered a pathway for on-road transportation decarbonization in China. Different from the conventional gasoline vehicles whose emissions are mainly released from vehicle tailpipes, emissions of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are from the upstream processes of electricity generation and vehicle manufacturing, thus a comprehensive lifecycle analysis and comparison of BEVs with gasoline vehicles is required to quantify the emission mitigation benefit of vehicle electrification and determine the path to a carbon-neutral future. In the study, we compare the cradle-to-grave (C2G) lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of gasoline and electric vehicles in China and analyze the greenhouse gas emission reduction of vehicle electrification in different provinces. Results show that under the current technologies, the national average C2G GHG emissions for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) of 100 miles (i.e., 160 km) and 300 miles (i.e., 480 km) all-electric range (AER) are 231 and 279 g CO2eq/km, respectively, 22% and 5% lower than those for gasoline internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). Improving vehicle fuel efficiency by hybridizing gasoline ICEVs can effectively reduce C2G emissions to 212 g CO2eq/km. At the provincial level, C2G GHG emissions of BEVs vary according to the provincial electricity mix. In eight provinces, C2G GHG emissions of BEVs with 300 miles AER (BEV300s) are higher than those of gasoline ICEVs due to the GHG-intensive coal-based electricity mix. In the future scenario, with low carbon fuels (such as high-level bioethanol blending gasoline) and electricity decarbonization, the national average C2G emissions of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and BEV300s can be reduced to 55 and 73 g CO2eq/km, respectively. Further decrease of C2G GHG emissions relies on reducing vehicle-cycle emissions from material processing and vehicle component manufacturing.
33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
Shortened Duration of Global Warming Slowdowns with Elevated Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Continuous emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) and aerosols in the last 160 years have resulted in an increasing trend of global mean surface temperatures (GMSTs). Due to interactions with natural variability, rates of the combined anthropogenically and naturally induced warming trends are characterized by significant slowdowns and speedups on decadal timescales. In this work, by analyzing observed and model-simulated data, we investigate how the duration of these episodes will change with different strengths of GHG and aerosol forcing. We found that the duration of warming slowdowns can be more than 30 yr with a slower rate of anthropogenic emissions but would shorten to about 5 yr with a higher one. This duration reduction depends on both the magnitude of the climate response to anthropogenic forcing and the strength of the internal variability. Moreover, the warming slowdowns can still occur even towards the end of this century under high emissions scenarios but with significantly shortened duration.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Microalgae Biomass Production for Utilization of CO2 and Mitigation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Microalgal cultivation processes for production of foods, feeds, fuels, fertilizers and other bioproducts and wastewater treatment are being considered for reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. Major differences between microalgae and higher plant biomass cultivation are include their potential for much higher productivities, their higher content of major (N-P-K) and minor nutrients, and the challenge of harvesting such microscopic plants. Most critical, microalgal mass cultures, unlike higher plants, currently require fertilization with concentrated sources of CO2. As practically all of the C fixed into algal biomass will be re-emitted into the atmosphere in short order, algae processes do not sequester carbon. Their potential for CO2 emissions reductions must thus be based on comparisons with current technologies for the production of competing products, such as biofuels or animal feeds, or in wastewater treatment. Further, due to economic limitations to flue gas transport (3 to 12 % CO2), as well as highly variable diurnal and seasonal CO2 utilization and limited land and water availability near most CO2 sources, only a small fraction of waste CO2 emissions will be directly utilizeable for microalgae biomass production. However, for long-distance transport, flue gas CO2 capture by chemical processes would greatly increase the costs of flue gas utilization. More concentrated, sources of CO2 from refineries, fertilizer, chemical plants, and fermentations are available, but are also very limited relative to the quantities required for commodity production. Microalgae can also be cultivated on organic wastes, which provide both nutrients (N, P, K, etc.) and organic and inorganic carbon for algal growth, reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional treatment processes. To maximize the potential for algae biomass production and CO2 utilization, direct capture of CO2 from air will be required. This could be accomplished with the algal cultivation process itself in large open-raceway ponds, through chemical and biological enhancements of CO2 transfer into algal cutures. The relative productivities, economics, greenhouse gas balances, and resource potentials of these alternative CO2 sources for large-scale production of microalgae will be reviewed.
09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
Peatland Loss in Southeast Asia Contributing to U.S. Biofuel’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Land use change (LUC) induced by biofuel production could lead to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which potentially increase biofuel’s carbon intensity. Among the sources of LUC-related emissions for soy biodiesel, the contribution from peatland loss to agricultural plantations in Southeast Asia remains uncertain. Here, in this study, we analyzed LUC in Malaysia and Indonesia and modeled its impacts on the GHG emissions of soy biodiesel produced in the United States. It shows that oil palm plantations have more than doubled over 2001–2016 and the area of palm-on-peatlands (PoP) has expanded 3.7 times. Over new palm plantations, the share of PoP is about 19% regardless of time and location and the emission factor (EF) for peatland-to-palm conversion is estimated to be 41.5 Mg CO 2 ha –1 yr –1 . With these updates on PoP and EF, the contribution of peatland loss (0.7–5.1 g CO 2 e MJ –1 ) to biodiesel emissions is only 40–65% of previous estimates, which reduces discrepancies among model simulations used by different agencies. Based on emerging evidence on LUC and related carbon changes, our analysis reexamines regional peatland loss and its impacts on LUC emissions modeling and provides new insights into the estimation of LUC impacts on biofuels’ carbon intensity.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Life-cycle analysis of greenhouse gas emissions from hydrogen delivery: A cost-guided analysis
The cost of hydrogen delivery for transportation accounts for most of the current H 2 selling price; delivery also requires substantial amounts of energy. In this work, we developed harmonized techno-economic and life-cycle emissions models of current and future H 2 production and delivery pathways. Our techno-economic analysis of dispensed H 2 costs guided our selection of pathways for the life-cycle analysis. In this paper, we present the results of market expansion scenarios using existing capabilities (for example, those that use H 2 from steam methane reforming, chlor-alkali, and natural gas liquid cracker plants), as well as results for future electrolysis plants that use nuclear, solar, and hydroelectric power. Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for fuel cell electric vehicles compared to conventional gasoline pathways vary from 40% reduction for fossil-derived H 2 to 20-fold for clean H 2 . Supplemental tables with greenhouse gas emissions data for each step in the H 2 pathways enable readers to evaluate additional scenarios.
08 HYDROGEN↗
Corrigendum: A review of trends and drivers of greenhouse gas emissions by sector from 1990 to 2018 (2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 073005)
This corrigendum resolves an error in figure 17 and clarifies the scope of the cement sector in figure 2. Figure 17 in the original published manuscript depicts a Kaya identity for the agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU) sector. We unintentionally excluded land-use CO 2 emissions from total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in this identity, and depicted only agricultural GHG emissions.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Whole-building life-cycle analysis with a new GREET® tool: Embodied greenhouse gas emissions and payback period of a LEED-Certified library
Embodied greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of building components and buildings operations need to be quantified to holistically address building sustainability. To evaluate embodied GHG emissions of buildings and to provide insights on building materials and building design decisions toward decarbonization, we have recently created a building life-cycle assessment (LCA) module in the widely used Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies (GREET (R)) LCA model. We applied the GREET building LCA module to examine embodied GHG impacts and the payback period of a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified public library in Chicago, USA. We developed localized, detailed life-cycle inventories to address individual building materials used in the library. We expanded the LCA system boundary to include the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing system, as well as refrigerant impacts, which are often ignored in previous studies. Results show that the total embodied GHG emissions are approximately 817 metric tons, or approximately 538 kg/m 2 . Sensitivity analysis highlights the positive role of increasing the use of recycled materials for reducing embodied GHG emissions. Sensitivity analysis on embodied GHG emissions payback periods shows the need to benchmark the embodied and operational carbon performance of buildings for comparison to alternative building designs and sustainability practices. Furthermore, this analysis demonstrates that building LCA models, such as the GREET building LCA module, which addresses embodied and operational GHG emission impacts of whole buildings holistically, could empower building architects, technology developers, manufacturers, and general contractors to address embodied and operational impacts holistically for building sustainability.
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
MISTRALl (Multiscale Intelligent System for TRAcking and Localization of Emissions: Exploring Persistent, Multimodal Monitoring and Source Identification of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
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Autonomous airborne systems↗