A Systematic Approach to Establishing Carbon Footprints for Wastewater Treatment Plants

There is considerable interest by utilities to establish carbon footprints of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with respect to greenhouse gas emissions, energy usage, energy production, and carbon credits for wastewater treatment. The methodologies and methods are at an early stage and have a great deal of uncertainty and variability. In this paper, a systematic and summary methodology to determine the carbon footprint of a WWTP including at operating, construction, process sinks and emitters’ levels has been presented. The paper also presents a case study based on this systematic summary methodology to illustrate the tools used. Source: WEFTEC 2009 Proceedings