Missing Emission Activity for Non-manufacturing industries and some end-use sectors

[Masha]

Hello everyone,

Based on "Emission Activity" table of US_9R_8D.sqlite, for non-manufacturing industries including construction and agriculture (both crops and livestock) as well as residential and commercial end-use commodities (such as residential wood combustion), I am afraid I have not been able to find any emission factor value in this table. Could you please assure me if TEMOA represents emissions coming from this or not?

Thank you,

Masha  

[Sean Smillie]

Hi Masha,

Temoa is intended to be a detailed energy system model, and wasn't necessarily built to represent emissions that come from non-energy sectors like agriculture and construction. Where they interact with the energy system, for example with biofuels, those processes and emissions are included or can be added.

If you haven't already, I find it helpful to visualize the OEO database using the tools described here. Temoa is built to represent emissions that occur through specific energy conversion steps (commodity -> technology -> commodity -> ... and so on). This chain is also sometimes exploited to track emissions and other quantities. You can see this using the network diagram. Using the network diagram, you can select a natural gas technology like R_SH_BLRHE_NGA_N and see that upstream there is a "commodity" called R_EA_NG that tracks natural gas emissions in the residential sector.

Sean

[Masha]

Hi Sean,

I appreciate your complete response. It is much clearer for me now to understand.

To make sure I understood you correctly, would you possibly let me know what you just mentioned means that fugitive equipment leaks and storage losses emissions resulted from petroleum liquids and natural gas transportation and storage are not represented in Temoa as these emissions are not attributable to an incremental consumption of energy? 

Best,

Masha

[Sean Smillie]

Hi Masha,

So that we can better understand how to help, can I ask if the intent of your questions is to understand the results and limitations of what the OEO has already published? Or are you trying to evaluate the capabilities of Temoa and the existing OEO database to understand if it's a suitable basis for future modeling you'll do yourself?

It's certainly possible to include fugitives and vented emissions somewhere in the chain of processes. Or, some sort of LCA emissions that includes leaks and losses could be used as an emissions factor at an appropriate stage in the process. It's a good question if and how it actually was done in the current iteration of the OEO database - I'm not directly affiliated with them, so I'll have to let one of them chime in on that.

Alternatively, you can check through the various emissions factors hinted at through the network diagram to see if the values are representative of the carbon content of natural gas (for example), or are higher and indicate they include a leakage rate as well.

Best,

Sean

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[Masha]

Hi Sean,

The second one; indeed, I am trying to have a good understanding of Temoa as I intend to utilize that for my research study (linkage of energy and emission modeling).

I have already checked the emission activity table of OEO database and also the output tables of US_BASE_Solved.sqlite. Generally speaking, the main issue I am facing is that I am not sure emissions coming from a number of economic activities are assigned to which process (technology) in Temoa or whether Temoa includes them or not. The followings are the ones I have not been able to link to Temoa processes available in the network:

1.  Emissions from mining of metals and non-metals other than coal, oil ang gas.

2. Warehousing and storage emissions from bulk materials storage.

3. Solvent utilization emission (Such as surface coating and dry-cleaning emissions).

4. Wastewater treatment emissions.

5. Dust emissions resulted from construction operations and mobile sources (such as PM emissions caused by residential and non-residential and PM released from paved roads from mobile source movements)

I appreciate your help and time.

Masha

[Temoa Project]

Hi Masha,

Thanks for your interest in using the OEO database along with Temoa. 
Katie and Sean have already pointed out some of the resources that might be helpful to you. 

To add to their responses and address some of your specific questions:

I would refer to US_9R_8D.sqlite as the most up-to-date OEO database (it has several differences compared to US_BASE). 

We do include upstream life cycle emissions for biomass, petroleum fuels, coal and natural gas - I think you may have found these already, but I would point you to this documentation notebook for more details. 

We do not include emissions from any of the technologies/activities that you identified in your last email. 

I hope this helps. 

Best,

Aranya