Embodied greenhouse gas emissions from building China's large-scale power transmission infrastructureShow others and affiliations
2021 (English)In: Nature Sustainability, E-ISSN 2398-9629, Vol. 4, no 8, p. 739-747Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
China has built the world's largest power transmission infrastructure by consuming massive volumes of greenhouse gas-(GHG-) intensive products such as steel. A quantitative analysis of the carbon implications of expanding the transmission infrastructure would shed light on the trade-offs among three connected dimensions of sustainable development, namely, climate change mitigation, energy access and infrastructure development. By collecting a high-resolution inventory, we developed an assessment framework of, and analysed, the GHG emissions caused by China's power transmission infrastructure construction during 1990-2017. We show that cumulative embodied GHG emissions have dramatically increased by more than 7.3 times those in 1990, reaching 0.89 GtCO(2)-equivalent in 2017. Over the same period, the gaps between the well-developed eastern and less-developed western regions in China have gradually narrowed. Voltage class, transmission-line length and terrain were important factors that influenced embodied GHG emissions. We discuss measures for the mitigation of GHG emissions from power transmission development that can inform global low-carbon infrastructure transitions.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
NATURE RESEARCH , 2021. Vol. 4, no 8, p. 739-747
National Category
Energy Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-54044DOI: 10.1038/s41893-021-00704-8ISI: 000636949200001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85103678933OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-54044DiVA, id: diva2:1548736
2021-05-032021-05-032021-12-16Bibliographically approved