Multi-Region Input-Output-Based Carbon and Energy Footprint Analysis of U.S. Manufacturing

Date of Submission

12-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Engineering and Operations Management

Department

Engineering and Applied Science Education

Advisor

Gokhan Egilmez

Committee Member

Can B. Aktas

Committee Member

Ridvan Gedik

Committee Member

Ali Montazer

Keywords

manufacturing, carbon footprint, energy footprint

LCSH

Carbon--Environmental aspects--United States, Energy industries--Environmental aspects--United States

Call No. at the Univ. of New Haven Library

AS36.N29 Ind. Eng./ Bus. Adm. 2016 no.1

Abstract

In this research, the U.S. manufacturing activities' life cycle-based carbon and energy footprint impacts were quantified considering the international trade linkages with the rest of the world. The U.S economy was integrated into a multi-region input-output (MRIO) life cycle assessment framework where total of 40 major economies, including the USA, China, Russia, and others, and the rest of the world’s (ROW) countries were modeled to assess the global energy and carbon footprint impacts. Each country’s economy assumed to be comprised of 35 major industries based on the WIOD database classification (Kucukvar et al., 2016). A total of 1435 (41x35 = 1435) industries comprise the global structure of world economy. The novelty of the approach is that the MRIO model was developed in a stochastic fashion where global trade-linked uncertainties are also taken into consideration. Top carbon emitting and energy consumer industries and countries were analyzed by using data analytics and statistical modeling approaches. The results showed that the USA is the largest contributor of the total carbon footprint (CFP) and the total energy footprint (EFP) with 81.7% and 84%, respectively. Moreover, the agriculture/ hunting forestry/ fishing sector and the electricity/ gas/ water supply sectors were found to be the dominant sectors of the total share of carbon footprint with 22 % and 21.3 %, respectively. The coke/ refined petroleum/ nuclear fuel sector had the largest share of the total energy footprint with 47.9% of the total impacts.

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