System dynamics simulation for CO₂ emission mitigation in green electric-coal supply chain

CO₂ emissions from electric-coal combustion remain dominant in aggregate CO₂ emissions of China. Few of existing studies explore the systemic interactions among the whole life cycle of green electric-coal supply chain. This study proposes a CO₂ emission estimation model from the perspective of direct costing, and then develops a system dynamics (SD) model to simulate the scenarios on CO₂ emission mitigation in the whole life cycle of green electric-coal supply chain. System dynamics model contains four sub-systems, including production subsystem, transportation subsystem, storage subsystem and consumption subsystem. Major sources and key impact factors of CO₂ emissions changes as well as mitigation scenarios for electric-coal supply chain greening are discussed. Results show that 1) the developed SD model in electric-coal supply chain is tested to be robust; 2) the potential for CO₂ emission mitigation in transportation system is larger than the other systems; 3) the effective scenario for emission mitigation is to increase the proportion of railway transportation during transportation, expand gas extraction during production and increase technological investment of gas extraction during transportation. The framework of scenario simulation using developed SD model could be a reference to the greening of other energy-intensive supply chains, such as iron and steel supply chain etc.