Accurate carbon accounting based on industrial metabolism for the lean management of carbon emission

Abstract

The carbon accounting plays a critical role in the lean carbon management and the policy formulation for industrial entities. The carbon accounting method based on emission factors offered by IPCC usually leads significant errors on the micro-level of the enterprise. For implementing a bottom-up lean carbon management with higher accounting accuracy, an accurate carbon accounting model based on the industrial metabolism analysis is established on a S-system of dynamics with using the approximation method of power law and Michaelis–Menten law. It is used to predict the amounts of various resources and output products at the process nodes under predetermined simulation conditions. In the case study on a blast furnace ironmaking environment, it succeeds in accurately predicting the amounts of products including carbon emissions depending on the massive variables of materials and fuels. Further study on the residual analysis shows that mean errors of the CO2 and CO emissions are respectively 5.23% and 6.77% while using the industrial metabolism based carbon accounting model. This method better addresses the challenge of severely overestimation on carbon emissions in the carbon accounting of the ironmaking industrial environment. It offers a prospective and accurate carbon accounting method for further formulating more targeted policies. It facilitates the lean management of carbon emission at a micro-level of enterprise so that the climate change is mitigated from bottom to top.

Keywords

• Carbon management
• Carbon accounting
• Industrial metabolism
• S-system
• Power law approximation
• Michaelis–Menten law