Operational carbon footprint of the U.S. water and wastewater sector's energy consumption

Louis Zib; Diana M. Byrne; Landon T. Marston; Christopher M. Chini

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128815

Operational carbon footprint of the U.S. water and wastewater sector's energy consumption

Louis Zib, Diana M. Byrne, Landon T. Marston, Christopher M. Chini

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

81 Scopus citations

Abstract

Responding to global climate change requires better accounting of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to develop targeted strategies for reducing carbon footprints. Energy demand is a major contributor to operational GHG emissions in the water sector. However, the United States struggles to track GHG emissions in this sector largely due to the absence of a centralized and routinely updated water database, which includes operational information. Previous research focused on estimating operational GHG emissions generated from energy used on site and GHG emissions generated from off-site electricity production, but consumed by the facility. Largely these studies have been conducted at single utilities or cities and rarely at a regional or country scale. In this study, we assess the carbon footprints of operational energy use for 76 wastewater utilities and 64 drinking water utilities across the United States. Additionally, we investigate water-related GHG emissions at a sub-annual scale through three case cities to understand how GHG emissions vary at the monthly scale. Per unit of water, indirect energy in the form of grid electricity is found to be the largest contributor of operational GHG emissions. We estimate the total drinking water and wastewater emissions associated with electricity, natural gas, and fuel oil consumption across the United States to be 26.5 × 10⁹ and 16.2 × 10⁹ kg CO_2e, respectively. We find the average carbon footprint per volume of drinking water and wastewater emissions to be 0.46 kg CO_2e/ m³ and 0.38 kg CO_2e/ m³, respectively—equivalent to 2.1% of total emissions from the U.S. electricity sector each year. The research provides insights into operational GHG emissions of the water sector and advances the understanding of temporal variations in the life cycle of energy use. Through the research we suggest the need for further analyses of environmental impacts at the sub-annual scale and support continued accounting of the water sector.

Original language	English
Article number	128815
Journal	Journal of Cleaner Production
Volume	321
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128815
State	Published - Oct 25 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021

Funding

L.T.M. acknowledges support by the National Science Foundation, United States Grant ACI-1639529 (“INFEWS/T1: Mesoscale Data Fusion to Map and Model the U.S. Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) System”).

Funders	Funder number
U.S. Department of Energy Chinese Academy of Sciences Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Project Oak Ridge National Laboratory Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment National Science Foundation National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center National Natural Science Foundation of China	ACI-1639529
U.S. Department of Energy Chinese Academy of Sciences Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Project Oak Ridge National Laboratory Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment National Science Foundation National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center National Natural Science Foundation of China

Keywords

Carbon footprints
Drinking water systems
Energy–water nexus
Wastewater systems

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
General Environmental Science
Strategy and Management
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128815

Cite this

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title = "Operational carbon footprint of the U.S. water and wastewater sector's energy consumption",

abstract = "Responding to global climate change requires better accounting of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to develop targeted strategies for reducing carbon footprints. Energy demand is a major contributor to operational GHG emissions in the water sector. However, the United States struggles to track GHG emissions in this sector largely due to the absence of a centralized and routinely updated water database, which includes operational information. Previous research focused on estimating operational GHG emissions generated from energy used on site and GHG emissions generated from off-site electricity production, but consumed by the facility. Largely these studies have been conducted at single utilities or cities and rarely at a regional or country scale. In this study, we assess the carbon footprints of operational energy use for 76 wastewater utilities and 64 drinking water utilities across the United States. Additionally, we investigate water-related GHG emissions at a sub-annual scale through three case cities to understand how GHG emissions vary at the monthly scale. Per unit of water, indirect energy in the form of grid electricity is found to be the largest contributor of operational GHG emissions. We estimate the total drinking water and wastewater emissions associated with electricity, natural gas, and fuel oil consumption across the United States to be 26.5 × 109 and 16.2 × 109 kg CO2e, respectively. We find the average carbon footprint per volume of drinking water and wastewater emissions to be 0.46 kg CO2e/ m3 and 0.38 kg CO2e/ m3, respectively—equivalent to 2.1\% of total emissions from the U.S. electricity sector each year. The research provides insights into operational GHG emissions of the water sector and advances the understanding of temporal variations in the life cycle of energy use. Through the research we suggest the need for further analyses of environmental impacts at the sub-annual scale and support continued accounting of the water sector.",

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AB - Responding to global climate change requires better accounting of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to develop targeted strategies for reducing carbon footprints. Energy demand is a major contributor to operational GHG emissions in the water sector. However, the United States struggles to track GHG emissions in this sector largely due to the absence of a centralized and routinely updated water database, which includes operational information. Previous research focused on estimating operational GHG emissions generated from energy used on site and GHG emissions generated from off-site electricity production, but consumed by the facility. Largely these studies have been conducted at single utilities or cities and rarely at a regional or country scale. In this study, we assess the carbon footprints of operational energy use for 76 wastewater utilities and 64 drinking water utilities across the United States. Additionally, we investigate water-related GHG emissions at a sub-annual scale through three case cities to understand how GHG emissions vary at the monthly scale. Per unit of water, indirect energy in the form of grid electricity is found to be the largest contributor of operational GHG emissions. We estimate the total drinking water and wastewater emissions associated with electricity, natural gas, and fuel oil consumption across the United States to be 26.5 × 109 and 16.2 × 109 kg CO2e, respectively. We find the average carbon footprint per volume of drinking water and wastewater emissions to be 0.46 kg CO2e/ m3 and 0.38 kg CO2e/ m3, respectively—equivalent to 2.1% of total emissions from the U.S. electricity sector each year. The research provides insights into operational GHG emissions of the water sector and advances the understanding of temporal variations in the life cycle of energy use. Through the research we suggest the need for further analyses of environmental impacts at the sub-annual scale and support continued accounting of the water sector.

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ER -

Operational carbon footprint of the U.S. water and wastewater sector's energy consumption

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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