Carbon Footprint Scenarios of Renewable Electricity

Australia’s electricity sector is the largest carbon dioxide emitting industry and contributes to about one third of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE). Simultaneously, the Australian government targets a tremendous 80% reduction of GHGE by 2050 relative to 2010. With a large variety of low carbon technologies at hand, it seems indispensable that Australia’s electricity sector be largely decarbonized by 2050 in order to achieve this target. In this work input-output based hybrid Life Cycle Assessment (hLCA) is applied to calculate the economy-wide carbon footprints (CF) of seven electricity generation technologies. The magnitude and the impact of these indirect emissions is demonstrated in renewable electricity scenarios for Australia. Results indicate that the employment of different renewable energy technologies can potentially save a considerable fraction of Australia’s GHGE, even when taking into account indirect emissions along the technologies’ life cycles. This makes renewables an essential option for climate change mitigation. However, improvements in the electricity sector alone do not seem adequate to reach the stated 80% goal.