Incorporating upstream emissions into electric sector nitrogen oxide reduction targets.

Electricity production is a major source of air pollutants in the U.S. Policies to reduce these emissions typically result in the power industry choosing to apply controls or switch to fuels with lower combustion emissions. However, the life-cycle emissions associated with various fuels can differ considerably, potentially impacting the effectiveness of fuel switching. Life-cycle emissions include emissions from extracting, processing, transporting, and distributing fuels, as well as manufacturing and constructing new generating capacity. The field of life-cycle analysis allows quantification of these emissions. While life-cycle emissions are often considered in greenhouse gas mitigation targets, they generally have not been included in air quality policymaking. We demonstrate such an approach, examining a hypothetical electric sector emission reduction target for nitrogen oxides (NO

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.