scholarly journals Greenhouse gas emission effect of suspending slash pile burning in Ontario's managed forests

2016 ◽  
Vol 92 (03) ◽  
pp. 345-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael T. Ter-Mikaelian ◽  
Stephen J. Colombo ◽  
Jiaxin Chen

Ontario has made a commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 15, 37, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2020, 2030, and 2050, respectively. Ontario's forest managers can contribute to meeting these targets by implementing changes to forestry practices that either reduce emissions from operations or increase carbon sequestration in forest ecosystems and harvested wood products. We present an analysis of the effects on GHG emissions resulting from suspending the current management practice of slash pile burning (burning harvest residue in the forest without energy recovery). The analysis was performed for each of Ontario's forest management units (FMU) with assumed suspension of slash pile burning for four different periods: 2016–2025, 2016–2050, 2016–2075, and 2016–2100. Annual and cumulative avoided emissions from suspending slash pile burning that would have occurred with current practices were estimated from planned harvest volume and area adjusted to reflect harvesting levels from 1990 to 2009, data on slash pile burning from 2008 to 2013, and emission factors for combustion and decay of wood estimated from the literature. Suspending slash pile burning was estimated to reduce GHG emissions by year 2100 in all four no-burn scenarios, with cumulative GHG emission reductions estimated at -0.7, -4.5, -14.1, and -33.4 Mt CO2eq (million tonnes of CO2 equivalent), respectively. At the same time, suspending slash pile burning for the above-listed four periods resulted in losses of forest area by 2100 estimated at 7200, 24000, 40800, and 57800, respectively. The accuracy of these projections is affected by uncertainty in estimates of several components of the analysis, of which the primary one is the historical rate of slash pile burning. Improvement in measuring and reporting procedures is needed to obtain more reliable estimates of the amount of slash burned.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5858
Author(s):  
Kyumin Kim ◽  
Do-Hoon Kim ◽  
Yeonghye Kim

Recent studies demonstrate that fisheries are massive contributors to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The average Korean fishing vessel is old, fuel-inefficient, and creates a large volume of emissions. Yet, there is little research on how to address the GHG emissions in Korean fisheries. This study estimated the change in GHG emissions and emission costs at different levels of fishing operations using a steady-state bioeconomic model based on the case of the Anchovy Tow Net Fishery (ATNF) and the Large Purse Seine Fishery (LPSF). We conclude that reducing the fishing efforts of the ATNF and LPSF by 37% and 8% respectively would not only eliminate negative externalities on the anchovy and mackerel stock respectively, but also mitigate emissions and emission costs in the fishing industry. To limit emissions, we propose that the Korean government reduce fishing efforts through a vessel-buyback program and set an annual catch limit. Alternatively, the government should provide loans for modernizing old fishing vessels or a subsidy for installing emission abatement equipment to reduce the excessive emissions from Korean fisheries.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meryl Jagarnath ◽  
Tirusha Thambiran

Because current emissions accounting approaches focus on an entire city, cities are often considered to be large emitters of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with no attention to the variation within them. This makes it more difficult to identify climate change mitigation strategies that can simultaneously reduce emissions and address place-specific development challenges. In response to this gap, a bottom-up emissions inventory study was undertaken to identify high emission zones and development goals for the Durban metropolitan area (eThekwini Municipality). The study is the first attempt at creating a spatially disaggregated emissions inventory for key sectors in Durban. The results indicate that particular groups and economic activities are responsible for more emissions, and socio-spatial development and emission inequalities are found both within the city and within the high emission zone. This is valuable information for the municipality in tailoring mitigation efforts to reduce emissions and address development gaps for low-carbon spatial planning whilst contributing to objectives for social justice.


Author(s):  
Swithin S. Razu ◽  
Shun Takai

The aim of this paper is to study the impact of public government policies, fuel cell cost, and battery cost on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the US transportation sector. The model includes a government model and an enterprise model. To examine the effect on GHG emissions that fuel cell and battery cost has, the optimization model includes public policy, fuel cell and battery cost, and a market mix focusing on the GHG effects of four different types of vehicles, 1) gasoline-based 2) gasoline-electric hybrid or alternative-fuel vehicles (AFVs), 3) battery-electric (BEVs) and 4) fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs). The public policies taken into consideration are infrastructure investments for hydrogen fueling stations and subsidies for purchasing AFVs. For each selection of public policy, fuel cell cost and battery cost in the government model, the enterprise model finds the optimum vehicle design that maximizes profit and updates the market mix, from which the government model can estimate GHG emissions. This paper demonstrates the model using FCV design as an illustrative example.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liubov Volkova ◽  
C. P. Mick Meyer ◽  
Simon Murphy ◽  
Thomas Fairman ◽  
Fabienne Reisen ◽  
...  

A high-intensity wildfire burnt through a dry Eucalyptus forest in south-eastern Australia that had been fuel reduced with fire 3 months prior, presenting a unique opportunity to measure the effects of fuel reduction (FR) on forest carbon and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from wildfires at the start of the fuel accumulation cycle. Less than 3% of total forest carbon to 30-cm soil depth was transferred to the atmosphere in FR burning; the subsequent wildfire transferred a further 6% to the atmosphere. There was a 9% loss in carbon for the FR–wildfire sequence. In nearby forest, last burnt 25 years previously, the wildfire burning transferred 16% of forest carbon to the atmosphere and was characterised by more complete combustion of all fuels and less surface charcoal deposition, compared with fuel-reduced forest. Compared to the fuel-reduced forests, release of non-CO2 GHG doubled following wildfire in long-unburnt forest. Although this is the maximum emission mitigation likely within a planned burning cycle, it suggests a significant potential for FR burns to mitigate GHG emissions in forests at high risk from wildfires.


2015 ◽  
Vol 787 ◽  
pp. 187-191
Author(s):  
P.M. Sivaram ◽  
N. Gowdhaman ◽  
D.Y. Ebin Davis ◽  
M. Subramanian

Global warming and climate change are the foremost environmental challenges facing the world today. It is our responsibility to minimize the consumption of energy and hence reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. Companies choose ‘Carbon Footprint’ as a tool to calculate the greenhouse gas emission to show the impact of their activities on the environment. In this working paper, we assess the carbon foot print of an educational institution and suggest suitable measures for reducing it. Greenhouse gas emitting protocol for an academic institution in terms of tones of equivalent CO2 per year is projected using three basic steps includes planning (assessment of data’s), calculation and estimation of CO2 emitted. The estimation of carbon foot print is calculated by accounting direct emission from sources owned/controlled by the educational institution and from indirect emission i.e. purchased electricity, electricity produced by diesel Generator (DG), transport, cooking (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) and other outsourced distribution. The CO2 absorbed by trees are also accounted. Some of the options are identified in order to reduce CO2 level. The information of corporate carbon footprint helps us identifying the Green House Gases (GHG) emission “hot spots” and identifies where the greatest capacity exists in order to reduce the GHG emissions. The main prioritization goes to transport and then followed by DG, cooking and then electricity. The per capita CO2 emission and the total CO2 emission for a typical educational institution are estimated.


With growing concerns about global warming and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, there is an urgent need to evaluate and reduce the carbon footprint (CF) of surface excavation (SE). CF are GHG emissions caused by an activity or event. It is expressed in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide (COR2 R), or its equivalent of other emitted GHGs. Choosing an appropriate low-carbon emission method for SE is a vital task and involves environmental concerns due to several energy-consuming activities. Since essentially, every SE impacts the environment, it becomes very important to evaluate this impact and take necessary actions to minimize any negative consequence. The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive overview on progress acquired over the years in understanding GHG emissions from SE and to discuss the steps in CF estimation. Publications were identified that reported GHG emissions and CF of SE over past 30 years. This literature review suggests that for most of the SE, the material production phase consumes a large amount of energy and is a major contributor of GHG emissions. Early phases of project planning should include appropriate ecological decisions consistent with the life-cycle assessment (LCA) and CF considerations. Pipe material and outside diameter should be considered during the SE to allow a detailed evaluation and reduction of their environmental impacts (EI). Incorporation of additional factors, such as cost and duration of the project into the environmental analysis is also recommended.


Author(s):  
Julia M. O’Rourke ◽  
Carolyn C. Seepersad

Small-scale residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are becoming increasingly common. In some cases, governments or individual homeowners promote PV technology because of concerns about climate change and a desire to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). While solar PV directly emits no GHGs during use, the panels are associated with a significant amount of embedded GHG emissions, resulting from the manufacturing of the panels, for instance. A review of relevant literature reveals that the life cycle GHG emissions of solar PV panels are significantly influenced by contextual factors, such as the location of the panels during use. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the many ways context could affect the GHG emissions associated with solar PV systems and to demonstrate — via calculations from a simple analytical model — the potential magnitude of the GHG emissions differences associated with using PV panels in different contexts.


Author(s):  
Aaiysha Khursheed ◽  
George Simons ◽  
Brad Souza ◽  
Jennifer Barnes

Over the past few decades, interest in the effects of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on global climate change has peaked. Increasing temperatures worldwide have been blamed for numerous negative impacts on agriculture, weather, forestry, marine ecosystems, and human health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that the primary GHG emitted in the U.S. is carbon dioxide (CO2), most of which stems from fossil fuel combustion [1]. In fact, CO2 represents approximately 85% of all GHG emissions nationwide. The other primary GHGs include nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), ozone (O3), and fluorinated gases. Since the energy sector is responsible for a majority of the GHGs released into the atmosphere, policies that address their mitigation through the production of electricity using renewable fuels and distributed generation are of significant interest. Use of renewable fuels and clean technologies to meet energy demand instead of relying on traditional electrical grid systems is expected to result in fewer CO2 and CH4 emissions, hence reducing global climate change impacts. Technologies considered cleaner include photovoltaics, wind turbines, and combined heat and power (CHP) devices using microturbines or internal combustion engines. The Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) in California [2] provides incentives for the installation of these technologies under certain circumstances. This paper assesses the GHG emission impacts from California’s SGIP during the 2005 program year by estimating the reductions in CO2 and CH4 released when SGIP projects are in operation. Our analysis focuses on these emissions since these are the two GHGs characteristic of SGIP projects. Results of this analysis show that emissions of GHGs are reduced due to the SGIP. This is because projects operating under this program reduce reliance on electricity generated by conventional power plants and encourage the use of renewable fuels, such as captured waste heat and methane.


2018 ◽  
Vol 09 (04) ◽  
pp. 1850009 ◽  
Author(s):  
TORBJÖRN JANSSON ◽  
SARAH SÄLL

Livestock cause around 10% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the European Union. Despite the large quantities, no economic policy is in place to reduce emissions from the sector. In this paper, we introduce consumption taxes on animal products in the European Union to reduce GHG emissions. Impacts are simulated using the CAPRI model, which was created to analyze the impacts of agricultural policy reforms within the EU. Tax levels of 16, 60 and 290 Euro per ton of GHG emissions are used in the estimations. Our results show that consumption taxes have small mitigation effects, up to 4.9% of total agricultural emissions from the EU-27, mainly due to inelastic demand. The main source of reductions is beef and France is the country where most reductions would take place, given high levels of production and consumption in the country, combined with a large demand elasticity of beef.


Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 689 ◽  
Author(s):  
She ◽  
Chung ◽  
Han

Harvesting mountain pine beetle-infested forest stands in the northern Colorado Rocky Mountains provides an opportunity to utilize otherwise wasted resources, generate net revenues, and minimize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Timber and bioenergy production are commonly managed separately, and their integration is seldom considered. Yet, degraded wood and logging residues can provide a feedstock for bioenergy, while the sound wood from beetle-killed stands can still be used for traditional timber products. In addition, beneficial greenhouse gas emission (GHG) savings are often realized only by compromising net revenues during salvage harvest where beetle-killed wood has a relatively low market value and high harvesting cost. In this study we compared Sequential and Integrated decision-making scenarios for managing the supply chain from beetle-killed forest salvage operations. In the Sequential scenario, timber and bioenergy production was managed sequentially in two separate processes, where salvage harvest was conducted without considering influences on or from bioenergy production. Biomass availability was assessed next as an outcome from timber production managed to produce bioenergy products. In the Integrated scenario, timber and bioenergy production were managed jointly, where collective decisions were made regarding tree salvage harvest, residue treatment, and bioenergy product selection and production. We applied a multi-objective optimization approach to integrate the economic and environmental objectives of producing timber and bioenergy, and measured results by total net revenues and total net GHG emission savings, respectively. The optimization model results show that distinctively different decisions are made in selecting the harvesting system and residue treatment under the two scenarios. When the optimization is fully economic-oriented, 49.6% more forest areas are harvested under the Integrated scenario than the Sequential scenario, generating 12.3% more net revenues and 50.5% more net GHG emission savings. Comparison of modelled Pareto fronts also indicate the Integrated decision scenario provides more efficient trade-offs between the two objectives and performs better than the Sequential scenario in both objectives.


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