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Proceedings of the International Symposium on

Sustainable Systems and Technologies, v2 (2014)


Time series analysis of radiative forcing in a co-fired power system

Greg Schivley Booz Allen Hamilton, Schivley_Greg@bah.com
Troy Hawkins EPA, trh@alumni.cmu.edu
Tim Skone NETL, Timothy.Skone@netl.doe.gov
Joe Marriott Booz Allen Hamilton, Marriott_Joe@bah.com

Abstract. Global Warming Potential (GWP) equivalents are typically used in life cycle
assessment to represent radiative forcing over time. This practice works well when all GHG
emissions take place within a short period and do not vary over time. However, results using
CO equivalents to represent radiative forcing may be inaccurate if emissions do not fit within a
small time horizon or if the magnitude of emissions from a system changes over time. In these
cases, emissions that are modeled as a single pulse at t=0 and reported in carbon dioxide
equivalents may inaccurately represent the magnitude of radiative forcing from the system over
a period of time. This is especially important when comparing systems that do not have a similar
pattern of GHG emissions over time.

The use of co-fired biomass for energy production has been suggested as a method to reduce
GHG emissions. Determining the magnitude of the reduction depends on the metric used. A
time series analysis of life cycle emissions is used to determine the cumulative radiative forcing
from three systems: coal-only, hybrid poplar co-fired with coal, and long-growth roundwood co-
fired with coal. As the length of time between the uptake of carbon dioxide by biomass and its
release during combustion increases, the cumulative radiative forcing increasingly departs from
the value of zero that would be calculated using standard GWP metrics.

Direct and indirect land use change from the growth of hybrid poplar in the corn belt is used as
one example of this time-dependent effect. The total radiative forcing from direct land use
change emissions are 34% and 10% lower for 20 and 100 years than would be calculated for a
single pulse of emissions at t=0; radiative forcing for indirect land use change is 86% and 33%
lower for 20 and 100 years from t=0. Direct land use change is closer to the calculated value
because nearly half of the emissions take place in the first year of activity and 84% occur by
t=20. In contrast, only 24% of the indirect emissions occur by t=20.

The growth of roundwood provides another example of how standard GWP factors can give
inaccurate or misleading results when compared with actual radiative forcing. With harvest cycle
times measured in the decades, results calculated from a time series differ if CO uptake is
modeled for the growth of harvested wood or the replanted trees. The two choices give very
different results, with cumulative radiative forcing 24% higher at t=100 when uptake occurs in
replanted trees.