AWWA ACE68750

This powerpoint presentation presents case studies in climate change. The objectives and challenges of the first case study include the following: to meet or exceed the California (CA) Climate Action Registry standards; why - CA AB32 requires reporting if >25,000 T/yr; challenge - tailoring to the needs of the wastewater sector; addressed by best practice from the California Climate Action Registry; World Business Council for Sustainable Development; and, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation. The second case study examined United Kingdom water utility life cycle cost accounting. United Kingdom "mechanisms" for carbon reduction are presented, along with a "whole life carbon" accounting framework, stabilization goal for CO₂e, Social Cost of Carbon, Shadow Price of Carbon or Marginal Abatement Costs, the whole life carbon accounting process, embodied carbon emissions from initial construction and capital maintenance, and cumulative carbon emissions. A summary of carbon accounting for the United Kingdom water industry includes the following: the challenge is to provide new investment selection criteria, a full carbon cost to help drive lower carbon solutions; UKWIR projects provide standard emissions boundaries, estimation values, and a WLC accounting approach, to do that users can then check or build their own methodologies; cumulative emissions are estimated by adding emissions from periodic capital maintenance and 40 years of operation to emissions from construction - timescales are important; and, whole life carbon cost is determined by applying Defra SPC, increasing damage rate and Treasury Discount rate with sensitivity analysis. The third case study focuses on reducing carbon through hydropower upgrades at the Chelan Public Utilities District (PUD) at Chelan City, Washington. Two Sources of Emissions Reductions: upgrading the Power Generating Units; reducing water spilled over the dam; a fish bypass to encourage greater fish survival; less spilled water so that more water goes through the turbines, therefore more MWh. Project Analysis: baseline - 4,143,000 MWh, 40% of river volume spilled; project - upgrade to 5, 893,000 MWh, only 25% of river volume spilled; net - 1,750,000 MWh (turbine upgrade + 15% more water for generation); CO₂ - 0.40 TCO₂e/MWh (zero emission hydropower displacing high emission carbon fossil power). Result: 702,000 Tons CO₂ available for sale to the CCX; first tranche sold in Feb 2008 for $3.48/T = $400,000; and, price of carbon now ~$6/T, remaining CO₂e value ~$3M. Includes table, figures.