The total greenhouse warming potential of technical systems: analysis for decision making

Mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) warming of the atmosphere concerns many industrial and government sectors. Since no quantitative measures existed to compare the complete effects of processes and their GHG emissions, past decisions were based primarily on qualitative or partial analyses. Three developments extending existing methods are proposed. First, a systems perspective should be used to facilitate identification of all GHGs associated with industrial or agricultural operations and reduce chances of unanticipated side effects following any decision. Second, the entire life-cycle plus aftereffects should be used to portray system time effects. Third, a Warming Forcing Factor and Index are suggested for use to completely describe the effect of each GHG emitted by a system and relate it to useful output, as well as to composite the effects of all emissions. As an illustration of its suitability for individual technology assessments, results are presented for a biomass-to-methanol vehicle fuel system.