Disaggregating the Power Generation Sector for Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment

The electric power industry plays a critical role in the economy and the environment, and it is important to examine the economic, environmental, and policy implications of current and future power generation scenarios. However, the tools that exist to perform the life cycle assessments are either too complex or too aggregated to be useful for these types of activities. In this work, we build upon the framework of existing input-output (I-O) models by adding data about the electric power industry and disaggregating this single sector into additional sectors, each representing a specific portion of electric power industry operations. For each of these disaggregated sectors, we create a process-specific supply chain and a set of emission factors that allow calculation of the environmental effects of that sector's output. This new model allows a much better fit for scenarios requiring more specificity than is possible with the current I-O model.