Probabilistic life cycle analysis model for evaluating electric power infrastructure risk mitigation investments

Abstract

One effect of climate change may be increased hurricane frequency or intensity due to changes in atmospheric and geoclimatic factors. It has been hypothesized that wetland restoration and infrastructure hardening measures may improve infrastructure resilience to increased hurricane frequency and intensity. This paper describes a parametric decision model used to assess the tradeoffs between wetland restoration and infrastructure hardening for electric power networks. We employ a hybrid economic input–output life-cycle analysis (EIO-LCA) model to capture: construction costs and life-cycle emissions for transitioning from the current electric power network configuration to a hardened network configuration; construction costs and life-cycle emissions associated with wetland restoration; and the intrinsic value of wetland restoration. Uncertainty is accounted for probabilistically through a Monte Carlo hurricane simulation model and parametric sensitivity analysis for the number of hurricanes expected to impact the project area during the project cycle and the rate of wetland storm surge attenuation. Our analysis robustly indicates that wetland restoration and undergrounding of electric power network infrastructure is not preferred to the “do-nothing” option of keeping all power lines overhead without wetland protection. However, we suggest a few items for future investigation. For example, our results suggest that, for the small case study developed, synergistic benefits of simultaneously hardening infrastructure and restoring wetlands may be limited, although research using a larger test bed while integrating additional costs may find an enhanced value of wetland restoration for disaster loss mitigation.