Impact on Emissions and Energy Consumption of Evolving Pavement Material Practices from 1990 to 2010: A Washington State Department of Transportation Case Study

Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption are growing national and international concerns leading to an increase in attention to life cycle analysis (LCA) in multiple areas. There is a significant effort in the pavement industry to develop LCA, use it as a decision-support tool, and to quantify the environmental benefits of common pavement practices. Here, Roadprint, an online LCA tool (http://clients.paviasystems.com/wfl), is used to quantify the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption changes for four basic pavement materials practices at the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) between 1990 and 2010: (1) use of warm mix asphalt (WMA) in place of conventional hot mix asphalt (HMA), (2) incorporation of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in HMA pavement mixtures, and (3) use of fly ash and (4) slag as portland cement substitutes in portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements. Results show that 2010 realized savings over 1990 baseline values range from 4-22% for GHG emissions, and 5-18% for energy consumption depending upon practice. Ultimate savings based on current technology are potentially higher in the 17-44% range for GHG emissions and 12-32% range for energy consumption. These savings constitute about 0.01-0.1% of the total WSDOT fleet emissions and energy consumption if the WSDOT fleet and vehicles driving on WSDOT pavements are considered. Nonetheless, these savings are real and permanent and understanding their magnitude can help in decision-making.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFD10 Pavement Management Systems.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Muench, Stephen T
  • Martinez Caraballo, Eva
  • Lin, Yen Yu
  • Gutub, Sohaib
  • Willoughby, Kim
  • Uhlmeyer, Jeff
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 23p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Decision making; Energy consumption; Fly ash; Greenhouse gases; Hot mix asphalt; Life cycle analysis; Portland cement concrete; Reclaimed asphalt pavements
• Identifier Terms: Washington State Department of Transportation
• Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; Pavements; I15: Environment; I22: Design of Pavements, Railways and Guideways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01519317
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-3202
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 24 2014 12:02PM