Topic: Emission factors vs Environment loadingSubscribe | Previous | Next
Daniel Maercker 5/5/2014
1833 Views Hey Leap-community,
I'm a little bit stumped. I'm struggling with the input of the emission factors for the different fuels. All my results concerning GWP (CO2 non biogenic) are incorrect.
I have an external table, which gives me the emission factors in tC/TJ for biomass,oil,natural gas,oil shale,peat,coal and waste. But when I enter the values like they are in the table (e.g. 15,3 tC/TJ) it generates wrong numbers in the results. I checked other influencial values (such as historical production,process efficiency and so on) already multiple times,it is just about this environmental loading!
Could you please tell me how to do it the right way?
Charlie Heaps 5/5/2014
1831 Views Hi Daniel
Could you send me your data set so I can take a look? Please back it up to a .leap file and then email it to charlie.heaps@sei-us.org
One thought - are you entering factors for C while LEAP is expecting factors for CO2 perhaps?
Best,
Charlie
Daniel Maercker 5/6/2014
1825 Views Hey Charlie,
I think I have solved the problem now: the values were correct all the time, I just misinterpreted them. The problem was that my LEAP model only contained data for the electric generation and I compared the GWP data to energy related GWP (which also includes heat production). After adding the data for the heat production now, the results look reasonable and correct.
Still would like to know how LEAP calculates the GWP with this carbon content / fraction oxidized function,but I think this go to deep :)
Thank you anyways!
Daniel
Charlie Heaps 5/6/2014
1823 Views Glad to hear it Daniel,
In terms of GWP calculations, LEAP first calculates the physical emissions of each pollutant (ie Tonnes of CO2, CH4, etc.) You can then display GWP values (ie Tonnes of CO2e) by applying the 20, 100 or 500 year GWP values.
You can look in the General: Effects screen to see these GWP values for each gas and you can choose whether you want to use the GWP values from the IPCC 2nd, 3rd or 4th assessment reports. I have not (yet) added in the values from the new 5th assessment report, but will try to do so quite soon. In the meantime, you can edit the values yourself manually.
BTW - it seems that for National Communications countries have agreed to use the GWP values from the 2nd assessment report so as to make their reports comparable. Of course their is a trade off between comparability and scientific accuracy.
I hope this helps,
Charlie