Carbon footprint scenarios for renewable electricity in Australia

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION

卷:124

Article

Wolfram, Paul^1,2  Wiedmann, Thomas^2,3  Diesendorf, Mark⁴ 

[1] Tech Univ Berlin, Berlin Inst Technol, Environm Assessment & Planning Res Grp, Secretariat EB 5,Str 17 Juni 145, D-10623 Berlin, Germany

[2] UNSW Australia, Sch Civil & Environm Engn, Sustainabil Assessment Program, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

[3] Univ Sydney, Sch Phys A28, ISA, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

[4] UNSW Australia, Interdisciplinary Environm Studies, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

关键词: Renewable energy;    Carbon footprint;    Scenario analysis;    Input-output analysis;    Hybrid Life-Cycle Assessment;    Australia;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.080

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Despite considerable mitigation efforts, global emissions from the electricity sector continued to grow in recent years. In Australia, the electricity sector is the largest CO2-emitting industry, contributing 35% of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions. The Australian government targets an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 relative to 2010. With a large variety and quantity of renewable energy resources, it is technically feasible and seems indispensable that Australia's electricity sector be largely decarbonised by 2050 in order to achieve this target. In this paper, scenario-based hybrid Life Cycle Assessment is applied to calculate the economy-wide carbon footprints of seven electricity generation technologies in scenarios with differing renewable electricity penetration. This work is the first to apply a full life-cycle approach to scenario analysis of electricity generation in Australia. The findings are at the higher end of previously reported carbon footprint intensity ranges and above median values. However, even when taking into account indirect emissions along the technologies' life-cycles, the results indicate that the employment of different renewable energy technologies can potentially save a considerable fraction of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. This makes renewables an essential option for climate change mitigation. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free