Emissions Reductions and Economic Feasibility of China's Solar Thermal Power Industry After the Introduction of Chinese Certified Emission Reduction Policy

In China, as the major source of energy consumption and air pollutant emissions, the power industry is not only the principal force that bears the responsibility of national emission reduction targets but also a breakthrough that reflects the effectiveness of emission reduction. In this study, based on the integrated MARKAL-EFOM system (TIMES) model and scenario analysis method, a bottom-up energy system optimization model for the power industry was established, and four scenarios with different constraints were set up to predict and analyze the power demand and the energy consumption structure. Emission characteristics, emission reduction characteristics, and emission reduction cost of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOX), particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5), and mercury (Hg) were quantitatively studied. Finally, for the environmentally friendly development and optimal adjustment of power production systems in China, the control path in the power industry that is conducive to the emission reduction of air pollutants was obtained, which is of great significance for the ultimate realization of climate friendliness. The results demonstrate that from 2020 to 2050, the power demand of the terminal departments will increase, with the composition significantly changed. The focus of power demand will change from industry to the service industry gradually. If no additional targeted emission reduction or adjustment policies are added in the power industry, the primary energy and air pollutant emissions will increase significantly, putting great pressure on resources and the environment. For the emission reduction of air pollutants, the promotion effect of emission reduction measures, such as the implementation and promotion of non-fossil fuels, is restricted. The power industry can introduce and maximize the best available technologies while optimizing the structure of energy consumption to realize efficient emission reduction of air pollutants and energy conservation. In 2030, emissions will reach peak values with reasonable emission reduction cost. This has the additional effect of abating energy consumption and preventing deterioration of the ecological environment, which is of profound significance for the ultimate realization of climate friendliness.

Concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) industry is a strategic emerging industry in China. Its further development is of great significance for promoting the energy revolution, achieving energy saving and emission reduction. In this paper, China’s CSP industry is systematically analysed. First of all, the status quo is elaborated from the perspectives of relevant policies and regulations, market and generation technology development. Secondly, the problems and the underlying reasons of China’s CSP industry are deeply studied. On this basis, the future trends of CSP are expounded on the three levels of policy, market and power generation technology. Finally, a series of feasible countermeasures are put forward, designed to promote the development of CSP industry and the transformation of energy structure.

In this paper, the Weather Research Forecast (WRF) Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions (CAMx) modeling system with the particulate source apportionment technology (PSAT) module was used to study and analyze the spatial and temporal distribution of atmospheric pollutant concentrations and the source apportionment of fine particles (PM2.5) under the base year and an emission reduction scenario in the Shandong province, China. Our results show that industry is the largest contributor of PM2.5. In addition, the contribution of key energy-related industries was as high as 29.5%, with the thermal power industry being the largest individual contributor. In January, the largest contribution came from residents, reaching 41.3%. Moreover, loose coal burning in rural areas contributed up to 19.4% in winter. Our results also show that the emission reduction scenario had palpable effects on the reduction of air pollution. The more the emissions of SO2, NOX, PM2.5, and PM10 were reduced, the more the average concentration was decreased. The implementation of energy conservation and emission reduction policies by industry and resident is conducive to improving the quality of the atmospheric environment. In particular, a comprehensive control of loose coal burning in winter could significantly improve heavy pollution by particulate matter in winter.

Introducing renewable energy and industrial restructuring to reduce GHG emission: Application of a dynamic simulation model

Under the policy background of "joint prevention and control" of global greenhouse gas emission reduction and regional air pollutants, the power industry, as an important target industry of energy conservation and emission reduction policies, has become an effective choice to release dual pressures. In this paper, the "bottom-up" emission factor method was used to measure the emission of CO2 and NOX from 2011 to 2019. Then, the contributions of six factors to NOX emission reduction in China's power industry were identified using the Kaya identity and logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) decomposition methods. The research results show that (1) there is a significant synergistic emission reduction effect between CO2 emission reduction and NOX emission reduction; (2) the factor that inhibits the growth of NOX emissions reduction in the power industry is economic development factor; and (3) the main factors that promote the reduction of NOX emission from the power industry are synergy effect, energy intensity, power generation intensity, and power production structure factors. Several suggestions are proposed, which are the power industry should adjust its structure, improve energy intensity, focus on applying low-nitrogen combustion technology, and improve the air pollutant emission information disclosure system to reduce NOX emissions.

Inter-annual changes in transboundary air quality from KORUS-AQ 2016 to SIJAQ 2022 campaign periods and assessment of emission reduction strategies in Northeast Asia

Objectives: China is a large country of tobacco production and consumption. In the construction and development of carbon market, the tobacco industry is expected to realizing energy conservation and emission reduction by participating in carbon trading, especially focusing on the forest carbon sequestration demand based on emissions reduction. Compared with the tobacco industry, the heavy pollution industries participate in the carbon market more deeply and widely. Therefore, this paper takes thermal power and steel industries as the research object, in order to provide some implications for the emission reduction path of tobacco industry. It considers the CO2 emissions intensity and marginal abatement costs (MAC) between China’s thermal power and steel industries during 2005–2017, and quantifies the forest carbon sequestration (FCS) demand level of these two industries to account for the role and potential of the forests for China’s green and low-carbon development. Methods: It uses a logistic algorithm to reflect the relationship among FCS demand, MAC and other influencing factors, and the cloud model to simulate FCS demand in different scenarios. Results: It shows an average decline of 54.06% and 56.05% in the carbon intensity of the two industries over the period. The average annualMAC are 11.82–25.55 CNY/ton across pilots, while the annual FCS demand expectation is 35 and 45 million tons for the thermal power and steel industries, respectively. If the MAC increases by 10%, the annual FCS demand will increase to 90 and 50 million tons, respectively. Other factors such as the prices of carbon emissions rights, carbon emission quotas, and industry output show little effect on FCS demand. Conclusion: The economic and technological efficiency of emissions reduction in different industries should be considered comprehensively, and that the consumer to producer subsidy for FCS in the carbon market should be adjusted for resource distribution optimization. This would promote emissions reduction, stimulate FCS demand, and improve the carbon market mechanism.

Synergistic effects of air pollutants and CO2 at Chinese thermal power plants based on real-monitored data.

Estimation of the losses in potential concentrated solar thermal power electricity production due to air pollution in China

<p indent=0mm>Carbon neutrality refers to achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing CO₂ emissions is one of the major ways to achieve carbon neutrality and control air temperature rise. So far, numerous countries have pledged their goals of achieving carbon neutrality. In September 2020, China proposed a national dual-carbon goal and the associated timeline to achieve peak carbon and carbon neutrality. Therefore, how the proposal will lead to future changes in air quality and climate in China is of great interest. In the context of the dual-carbon goal, a series of emission reduction policies for different types of industries will be implemented to achieve CO₂ reductions. As a result, emissions of other pollutants will be reduced as well. Furthermore, future global climate change is also one of the main concerns. Most previous studies have focused on one single impacting factor without consideration of the dual-carbon goal. While carbon neutrality is an inevitable global trend, studies of its implication on air quality and climate change in China are still rare. Considering both regional emissions and global climate change will help predict future climate. Taking the dual-carbon goal into account will help adjust current emission reduction policies. In this study, we simulate the impacts of both regional emissions and global climate change in the future on China’s air quality and climate in the future under the dual-carbon goal scenario using a regional climate-ecology coupled model RegCM-Chem-YIBs, based on the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP4.5) climate scenario and China’s 2030 emission data based on dynamics projection model (DPEC). Numerical simulations for present climate and present emissions, present climate and future emissions, and future climate and future emissions were performed. The comparison between the three sets of simulations provides how future regional emission reduction and global climate change will affect air pollution and climate in 2030. The study shows that, compared with 2015, the concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), ozone (O₃), and carbon dioxide (CO₂) in China will decrease by approximately 36.8, <sc>19.8 μg m⁻³</sc> and <sc>1.9 ppm</sc> in 2030, respectively, under the combined effect of future regional emissions and global climate change. The temperature in the southern part of China will increase significantly, with an increase between 0.5 and <sc>1.5 K.</sc> Precipitation and clouds decrease by <sc>1−2 mm d⁻¹</sc> and <sc>3%−6%,</sc> respectively. The temperature in the northern part decreases slightly, generally below <sc>1 K.</sc> Precipitation and clouds increase by approximately 2 mm d⁻¹ and 6%, respectively. Overall, regional emission changes have a larger impact on PM_2.5, O₃ and CO₂ concentrations, which are the main influencing factors for future air quality changes, while global climate change has a greater impact on temperature, clouds and precipitation. Emission reduction policies under the dual-carbon target will significantly reduce air pollution, but may exacerbate warming at the surface because these policies will inevitably diminish the cooling effect of particulate matter. The mitigation of climate change will require GHG (greenhouse gas) and air pollution synergistic emission reduction policies and worldwide cooperation.

Addressing the Burden of Disease Attributable to Air Pollution in India: The Need to Integrate across Household and Ambient Air Pollution Exposures

Novel energy station by natural fluid <scp> CO ₂ </scp>

With China’s proposed carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, energy conservation and emission reduction are becoming increasingly urgent for the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Based on a systematic combing through of the energy saving and emission reduction (ESER) policies in the Yellow River Basin, this paper empirically analyzed the impacts of objectives collaboration and measures collaboration of ESER policies on the carbon emission efficiency of prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin, by comprehensively adopting the super-slack-based measure (Super-SBM) model and the two-way fixed-effect model. The results of the study found that: (1) with the continuous improvement in policies, the collaboration level of ESER policies in the Yellow River Basin has been significantly improved; (2) the dual-objective collaboration of ESER policies has a significant promotional effect on the carbon emission efficiency of the Yellow River Basin with a lag effect, while the impact of multi-objective collaboration is not significant; (3) the dual-measure collaboration and multi-measure collaboration of ESER policies can effectively promote the improvement in carbon emission efficiency in the Yellow River Basin. This indicates that, in terms of carbon emission reduction in the Yellow River Basin, the objective setting of ESER policies can not be too much, and should pay attention to the mutual coordination of different policy measures to strengthen the carbon reduction effect of ESER policies collaboration.

In a low-carbon economic environment, China’s thermal power industry has developed at a rapid speed. Faced with significant development bottlenecks, however, promoting energy conservation and technological innovation has become the current goals of the country’s thermal power industry. Taking into account the heterogeneity of production technology, we utilize panel data of 23 listed thermal power companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2010 to 2015 as samples and divide them into large, medium, and small groups according to company size. Based on a meta-frontier function and the non-radial data envelopment analysis method, we evaluate the performance of energy-saving and emissions reduction in the thermal power industry when considering slack variables of energy input and undesirable output. The empirical study’s results show that the mean energy-saving and emissions reduction performance in this power industry is generally low and exhibits significant differences under different frontiers. The performance of energy-saving and emissions reduction from high to low is small, large, and medium-size groups. The small-size group seems to obtain the industry-leading level production technology. Moreover, the technology gap and insufficient management are the primary sources of the total performance loss.

Energy saving and emission reduction policy is a long-term strategic choice in China, which will have a far-reaching impact on science and technology, economy and enterprise innovation. By controlling the growth rate of industries with high energy consumption and high pollution, the policy of energy conservation and emission reduction promotes the transformation of China’s economic growth mode to resource conservation and clean environment. Service industry has the characteristics of low energy consumption and light pollution, which will be paid special attention to. The policy of energy conservation and emission reduction with promising medium and long-term prospects is a long-term strategic choice for China, which will have a far-reaching impact on the economy. During the 30 years of reform and opening up, traditional industries with high energy consumption, such as electric power, metallurgy, cement and chemical industry, have made great contributions to China’s economic development by ensuring supply. Today, China has entered a new historical development stage, and the extensive growth mode with high energy consumption and high pollution is increasingly facing challenges. The intensive growth mode with the core of improving the utilization efficiency of production factors such as energy and the low-carbon economy with low energy consumption, low pollution and low emission have become the future economic development direction of China.