Decarbonizing the US aluminum ecosystem using a dynamic material flow simulation framework

Sidi Deng

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.147413

2026-01-01

PRE

DOI：10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.147413

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摘要

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Aluminum is essential to clean energy technologies yet remains a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Decarbonizing the aluminum industry requires insight into material flows and interactions between decarbonization pathways. This study holistically analyzes the U.S. aluminum industry and its GHG emissions through system modeling and simulation. An object-oriented system model is developed to digitally represent the U.S. aluminum supply chain, enabling the generation of consumption-driven material flows and the assessment of GHG emissions from both domestic production and imported feedstocks. A range of decarbonization pathways was applied to U.S. domestic activities and evaluated over 2020-2050. To assess their interactions and combined impacts under uncertainty, strategy portfolios were evaluated within a design-of-experiments framework using stochastic simulation. Improving post-consumer scrap recyclability most significantly reduces total emissions by lowering carbon-intensive primary metal imports, while green hydrogen offers the greatest reduction in domestic emissions. Improving manufacturing yield efficiency markedly reduces both domestic and import emissions but also diminishes the effectiveness of other domestic measures. In contrast, pathways such as electrification and grid decarbonization act synergistically, amplifying their overall impact. A combined strategy-integrating grid decarbonization, alternative fuels, inert anodes, and enhanced material efficiency-could reduce annual GHG emissions from the U.S. aluminum supply chain by up to 90.9 % (or 42.8 % when accounting for imports) by 2050 relative to 2020. This study introduces a model-based paradigm to support strategic decarbonization planning at the supply-chain level, which can be readily adapted to other energy-intensive industries and regional contexts.

Keyword:

Dynamic material flow analysis

Input-output analysis

Object-oriented system modeling

Stochastic simulation

Design of experiments