Development and Application of an Embodied Energy Model for Individual Water Supply Systems in Great Lakes Region

An embodied energy model is developed in this study and it is applied to the Kalamazoo (Michigan) public water supply system, which is selected to represent a “very large water supply system” in the Great Lakes Region. A hybrid analysis that combines input-output analysis and process analysis is used to develop the model. Input-output analysis is used to estimate the energy intensity of the water supply system. Process analysis is used to modify the initial total embodied energy and estimate the cost of specific water supply systems. Cost curves are used in the cost estimation, which greatly reduced the amount of data needed. The energy embodied in annual operation and maintenance of the Kalamazoo public water supply system is 363.1 TJ and in the construction of the system is 4,012.8 TJ. On a life cycle basis, the energy embodied in the system (100-year life span) per year is 403.2 TJ.