Shade trees reduce building energy use and CO2 emissions from power plants
- LBNL Library
Urban shade trees offer significant benefits in reducing building air-conditioning demand and improving urban air quality by reducing smog. The savings associated with these benefits vary by climate region and can be up to $200 per tree. The cost of planting trees and maintaining them can vary from $10 to $500 per tree. Tree-planting programs can be designed to have lower costs so that they offer potential savings to communities that plant trees. Our calculations suggest that urban trees play a major role in sequestering C02 and thereby delay global warming. We estimate that a tree planted in Los Angeles avoids the combustion of 18 kg of carbon annually, even though it sequesters only 4.5-11 kg (as it would if growing in a forest). In this sense, one shade tree in Los Angeles is equivalent to three to five forest trees. In a recent analysis for Baton Rouge, Sacramento, and Salt Lake City, we estimated that planting an average of four shade trees per house (each with a top view cross section of 50 m2) would lead to an annual reduction in carbon emissions from power plants of 16,000, 41,000, and 9000 t, respectively (the per-tree reduction in carbon emissions is about 10-11 kg per year). These reductions only account for the direct reduction in the net cooling- and heating-energy use of buildings. Once the impact of the community cooling is included, these savings are increased by at least 25 percent.
- Research Organization:
- Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Lab., CA (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs; Environmental Protection Agency (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00098
- OSTI ID:
- 793747
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL--48123
- Journal Information:
- Environmental Pollution, Journal Name: Environmental Pollution Journal Issue: Supplement Vol. 116; ISSN 0269-7491; ISSN ENPOEK
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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