Evaluating the climate change mitigation potential of the forest sector requires a holistic approach based on forest carbon (C) sequestration, C storage in harvested wood products (HWP) and substitution on markets. High uncertainty is associated with substitution factors, that express avoided fossil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the use of forest-based products in replacement of GHG-intensive materials and fossil fuels in tC/tC.
Uncertainty associated with substitution factors can be reduced by providing more detailed, local and diverse results. The aim of this research is to generate multiple substitution factors on a micro-level scale for construction and bioenergy systems to match with the holistic methodology used in Canada, that assess the climate change mitigation potential of the forest sector. Life cycle assessment studies are used to quantify fossil GHG emissions for a baseline scenario and a wood-intensive scenario that fulfill the same functional unit. For solid product substitution, we focused on the construction sector and analyzed a range of wood innovative buildings with steel and reinforced concrete as alternative materials. We found a non-weighted average of 0.80 tC/tC for sawnwood and 0.81 tC/tC for panels. For energy substitution, we analyzed cases with different specifications on biomass product, facility type and alternative fossil fuel source in non-residential heat production and biofuel transportation sectors. We found a non-weighted average of 0.80 tC/tC for non-residential heat production and 0.51 tC/tC for biofuel transportation, that can be interpreted as 0.91 tC/tC for heavy fuel oil, 0.69 tC/tC for light fuel oil and 0.68 tC/tC for natural gas substitution.
If substitution factors presented in this study contributes to developing benchmark data at the Canadian level, more research is needed to upscale theses results at market level. Also, implementing these results to forest and HWP C dynamic models would be necessary to make any recommendations about the overall climate change mitigation potential of the forest sector.
| Date | 8 Dec 2021 |
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| Original language | French |
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| Awarding Institution | - École de technologie supérieure
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| Supervisor | Annie Levasseur (Supervisor) |
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Cardinal, T. (Author),
Levasseur (Supervisor),
8 Dec 2021Student thesis: Master's thesis › Master in Engineering: Engineering