Estimating carbon dioxide emissions for aggregate use

Economic, environmental, and technical gains from the Kyoto Protocol: Evidence from cement manufacturing

Dredging projects use large amounts of fuel, which leads to substantial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Until now, reducing the carbon footprint of dredging projects has mainly involved investigating the possibilities of dredging schemes and vessels that are more fuel efficient. A reduction in the order of 10–20% may be within reach, most of it is a win–win situation since fuel reduction will also reduce costs. A further reduction in carbon dioxide emissions may be possible on a project-by-project basis but will involve a trade-off between dredging costs and carbon dioxide emissions. Marine engineering projects also have an impact on primary production and formation of organic carbon and on sedimentation processes and burial of organic carbon in sediments. Both impacts influence carbon sequestration and can be a substantial or even overriding factor in the ‘carbon footprint’ of a project. The carbon footprint of a marine engineering project is often larger and more complex than previously anticipated. However, a more comprehensive carbon footprint also shows that a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is possible when the designs and dredging and maintenance schemes stimulate sequestration of organic carbon in the wider environment.

Online shopping habits and the potential for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from passenger transport

Assessment of the energy utilization and carbon dioxide emission reduction potential of the microbial fertilizers. A case study on “farm-to-fork” production chain of Turkish desserts and confections

ConspectusGlobal climate change caused by the excessive emission of greenhouse gases has become one of the greatest threats to human survival in the 21st century. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas on earth and has brought about serious environmental problems nowadays. On the basis of the current situation, it is urgent to reach the peak of carbon dioxide emission and then achieve carbon neutrality via policy support and engineering strategies within advanced materials and technologies. Carbon neutrality requires an appropriate balance between the emission and reduction of carbon dioxide. The emission of carbon dioxide mainly comes from modern industries, and the reduction requires several steps, including capture, conversion, and application. On one hand, it can reduce carbon dioxide emission by promoting the transformation of industrial structure. On the other hand, it is necessary to remove high-level carbon dioxide existing in the atmosphere by physical and chemical methods such as adsorption capture and catalytic conversion.This Account showcases our recent progress on carbon neutrality for the reduction of carbon dioxide through capture and conversion methods within advanced materials and technologies. We mainly focus on the right side of the carbon scale and have made some advances such as moisture-swing chemisorption for carbon dioxide capture, the reduction of oxygen-containing carbon dioxide, and the photothermal catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide. Different from previous studies, our work is about developing materials and techniques for practical applications. First, we have made attempts to develop cheap sorbents with high stability and a high adsorption capacity. Second, we have reported a moisture-swing technique with the capability of directly capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by relying on the humidity variation with low energy consumption. This technique is promising for realizing real-time carbon dioxide capture and utilization, which avoids high-cost storage and transport processes. Third, our work on carbon dioxide utilization focuses on efficient conversion under practical conditions. For instance, we have developed perovskite catalysts for converting carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide in an oxygen-containing environment. Furthermore, core–shell catalysts have been reported for carbon dioxide conversion with a high selectivity of 83% driven by solar energy. In addition, practical applications of captured carbon dioxide have been explored with respect to carbon dioxide-assisted graphene exfoliation, keeping fruit fresh, and crop growth promotion with carbon dioxide gas fertilizer. A future perspective on the challenges and opportunities for carbon neutrality has been provided on the basis of our experimental studies and theoretical predictions. It is expected that this Account will promote tremendous effort in the development of advanced materials and engineering technologies toward the realization of carbon neutrality by the middle of this century.

With growing climate change concerns, depleting natural resources and decrease in oil and gas prices, it is more vital than ever to efficiently manage natural resource allocation. Methane, the key component in natural gas and a raw material for numerous chemicals, is Qatar's more abundant resource. Natural gas can be monetized through many alternative paths. It can be sold as natural gas, either through pipelines or in liquefied form, or converted into diverse sets of fuels and materials using many alternative processing technologies. In the meantime, concerns of the effects of increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, majority of which are emitted from large industrial stationary sources and fuel consumption, have caused the global society to seek ambitious emission reduction targets.While on the one hand natural gas provides a clean fuel associated and enables carbon dioxide emissions through fuel switching globally, its local processing is associated with significant footprints. In the case of Qatar and its small population, this has resulted in very high per capita emissions. Most of the emissions are stationary and spatially concentrated in industrial clusters, where they originate mainly from natural gas processing, hydrocarbon processing, petrochemicals and metals production, and power and water generation.The industrial sector is challenged to balance profit making activities from natural gas monetization with increasing pressures to reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions. Conventional design of industrial parks centering on natural gas are carried out in an ad-hoc process that depends on the expertise of designers, available capital, market demand and regulations. Reduction methods in the past have been limited in technology, energy integration or geographical proximity to apply carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).Recently, carbon integration (Al-Mohannadi and Linke, 2015a,b) has been introduced as a systematic approach to determine the most efficient carbon dioxide reduction options in industrial parks by considering multiple carbon dioxide sources, potential carbon sinks, the layout of the city and the associated costs of transmission and conditioning. Carbon integration looks into the various conversion routes that take carbon dioxide into value added products, which can be converted chemically, biologically or through geographical utilization such as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) applications. This creates incentives to reduce carbon emissions, to create synergies between firms and to produce additional products in the cluster, while adhering to required emission reduction targets.Beyond focusing on low cost carbon dioxide emissions reduction, the broader design challenge for a natural gas monetizing industrial cluster is to identify the most promising configurations from the vast number of alternatives that exist from the possible combinations of many alternative natural gas monetization processes, and the many alternative carbon management options that could be applied, whilst exploiting synergies between natural gas conversion and carbon management. Most previous works have focused on different aspects of the overall problem: optimizing gas conversion processes, and managing carbon dioxide emissions reductions. Very few works have considered monetization in industrial clusters, and there is no published work on how to systemically make gas monetization decisions under carbon dioxide emissions constraints.This work introduces the first systematic approach to allocate natural resource under carbon dioxide footprint constraints. The approach yields integrated natural gas and carbon dioxide management schemes that yield the maximum profit for the given gas monetization and carbon dioxide management options and constraints that exist in the industrial cluster. The work explores different carbon dioxide emission reduction scenarios; expansion plans and determines most profitable product mix from an industrial cluster. By taking into consideration the tradeoff between environmental performance and potential profitability of natural resource allocation, it provides valuable information to decision makers from an optimization based tool. Policy makers and regulators can use the tool for developing strategies and for planning of more sustainable industrial clusters, parks or cities.The work is illustrated using a case study to demonstrate the application of the method on industrial cluster resembling a configuration of gas monetization options often observed in oil and gas centered economies.KeywordsResource Allocation, Climate Change, Carbon Dioxide emissions, Carbon Integration, Natural Gas Allocation, Gas Monetization, Carbon Reduction, Process Integration, Industrial Parks, Planning, Modeling, Optimization.ReferencesAl-Mohannadi, D.M., P. Linke (2015). On the Systematic Carbon Integration of Industrial Parks for Climate Footprint Reduction. Journal of Cleaner Production, DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.05.094.Al-Mohannadi, D.M., S.K. Bishnu, P. Linke, S.Y. Alnouri (2015b). Systematic Multi-Period Carbon Integration in an Industrial City. Chemical Engineering Transactions 45, 1219–1224.

The development of directions for decarbonization of steel production with the aim of increasing energy efficiency and improving environmental indicators by reducing carbon dioxide emissions is an urgent and promising task of today's world metallurgy. In recent years, a new constraint has appeared on industrial production – the 2015 UN Paris Agreement requires countries to ensure the transition to steel production with limited or zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in order to reduce the impact of industry on the environment. The purpose of the article is to analyze the strategic aspects of the technological development of the metallurgical industry and the decarbonization of steel production on the basis of technology transfer and the development of theoretical and methodological bases for the analysis of energy saving directions. The work presents the results of the analysis of directions for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and reducing carbon consumption in metallurgical production due to the improvement of existing and the introduction of innovative technologies. The results of theoretical and experimental research on reducing CO2 emissions conducted in the world and in Ukraine are presented. The world leaders in the development of technical and technological solutions for reducing CO2 emissions in metallurgical production are the companies of most industrialized countries. Examples of new technologies that reduce CO2 emissions are given. It is shown that developments in the decarbonization of steel production have not yet reached the level that requires a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. The prospect of creating innovative technologies is related to the use of hydrogen in metallurgical production. But the solutions proposed by foreign companies are not always possible to apply to the metallurgical production of Ukraine, they require scientific study and adaptation to the conditions of Ukraine, including taking into account the energy balance of enterprises, raw material conditions, the level of technology and competitiveness of metal products, the availability of energy carriers. The conditions to which the general strategy of decarbonization of steel production must comply have been determined. In Ukraine, it is necessary to develop its own concept of reducing CO2 emissions, taking into account the preservation of the competitiveness of products. Therefore, it is very important to evaluate and analyze the directions for reducing CO2 emissions in the metallurgy of the country and abroad for the further reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in relation to the existing and prospective conditions of operation of metallurgical enterprises of Ukraine.

Carbon dioxide emissions and growth of the manufacturing sector: Evidence for China

Green binders, eco-friendly cementitious materials, low embedded carbon dioxide cements: different names for products aimed at reducing the environmental impact of cement production. Calcium sulfoaluminate (CSA) cements offer a valid alternative to ordinary Portland cement (OPC) since they couple the advantages of a lower environmental impact during production with high early-age performance and dimensional stability. Their use is now increasing due to the development of dedicated standard processes. The combination of CSA cement with OPC has been widely investigated and a few products have been developed and are already available on the market. Supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) are widely used to improve the durability performance and lower the clinker content. High levels of substitution have allowed for improvements of performance indicators in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, but mechanical strengths at early ages can be affected. The combination of sulfoaluminate cement, OPC and SCMs opens the route towards innovative composite binders that offer good mechanical performance and significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

Assessing CO2 emissions in China’s iron and steel industry: A dynamic vector autoregression model

“China is by far the world’s largest importer of oil and emitter of carbon dioxide.” Therefore, clean energy development (CED) is of great practical significance to reduce carbon dioxide emission (CDE), ensure energy security, and achieve green economic growth. What is the role of CED in reducing CDE? Can CED, which requires significant investment, promote economic growth? For the above aims, according to the panel data of 30 provinces composed of accurate data during 1979 to 2016 and prediction data from 2017 to 2030 in China, this research employs “a non-parametric and additive regression model” to explore the linear and nonlinear influence of CED on CDE and economic growth. The results show that CED does not play an essential role in reducing CDE and fostering economic growth from a linear perspective; the influence of CED on CDE and economic growth in China’s western, central and eastern regions is significantly different from a nonlinear perspective. Hence, the Chinese government ought to fully play the critical role of clean energy in reducing CDE and fostering economic growth.

By applying the ARDL (autoregressive distributed lag) bounds testing method, this study examines the short- and long-term dynamic relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, economic growth (gross domestic product), industrialization, trade, and urban population in Tanzania from 1990 to 2020. The study found that economic growth, trade, industrialization, and the urban population all contributed to the increase in environmental degradation (i.e., carbon dioxide emissions). However, we found that financial credit (i.e., domestic credit to the private sector) reduces carbon dioxide emissions, and its effects are significant in EKC (environmental Kuznets curve) model. Our findings revealed that economic growth (i.e., income) was responsible for both short- and long-term increases in carbon dioxide emissions in Tanzania. Economic growth is harmful to the environmental quality above a threshold value of 6.23%. Furthermore, the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is confirmed for Tanzania. Our findings suggest that policymakers should monitor and use the threshold levels to manage carbon dioxide emissions and to protect the environmental quality. Further, a strong focus should be placed on formulating environmental policies (i.e., carbon tax policy) as industrialization, urban population, economic growth, and trade continue to grow in future, restricting carbon dioxide emissions and safeguarding the environment.

The world is experiencing an energy crisis and environmental issues due to the depletion of fossil fuels and the continuous increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. Microalgal biofuels are produced using sunlight, water, and simple salt minerals. Their high growth rate, photosynthesis, and carbon dioxide sequestration capacity make them one of the most important biorefinery platforms. Furthermore, microalgae's ability to alter their metabolism in response to environmental stresses to produce relatively high levels of high-value compounds makes them a promising alternative to fossil fuels. As a result, microalgae can significantly contribute to long-term solutions to critical global issues such as the energy crisis and climate change. The environmental benefits of algal biofuel have been demonstrated by significant reductions in carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur oxide emissions. Microalgae-derived biomass has the potential to generate a wide range of commercially important high-value compounds, novel materials, and feedstock for a variety of industries, including cosmetics, food, and feed. This review evaluates the potential of using microalgal biomass to produce a variety of bioenergy carriers, including biodiesel from stored lipids, alcohols from reserved carbohydrate fermentation, and hydrogen, syngas, methane, biochar and bio-oils via anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, and gasification. Furthermore, the potential use of microalgal biomass in carbon sequestration routes as an atmospheric carbon removal approach is being evaluated. The cost of algal biofuel production is primarily determined by culturing (77%), harvesting (12%), and lipid extraction (7.9%). As a result, the choice of microalgal species and cultivation mode (autotrophic, heterotrophic, and mixotrophic) are important factors in controlling biomass and bioenergy production, as well as fuel properties. The simultaneous production of microalgal biomass in agricultural, municipal, or industrial wastewater is a low-cost option that could significantly reduce economic and environmental costs while also providing a valuable remediation service. Microalgae have also been proposed as a viable candidate for carbon dioxide capture from the atmosphere or an industrial point source. Microalgae can sequester 1.3 kg of carbon dioxide to produce 1 kg of biomass. Using potent microalgal strains in efficient design bioreactors for carbon dioxide sequestration is thus a challenge. Microalgae can theoretically use up to 9% of light energy to capture and convert 513 tons of carbon dioxide into 280 tons of dry biomass per hectare per year in open and closed cultures. Using an integrated microalgal bio-refinery to recover high-value-added products could reduce waste and create efficient biomass processing into bioenergy. To design an efficient atmospheric carbon removal system, algal biomass cultivation should be coupled with thermochemical technologies, such as pyrolysis.

Semiconductors and Information Technologies

This study aims to analyze the influence of foreign direct investment, tourism, exports, and imports on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the High-Income State, Upper-Middle Income, and Lower-Middle-Middle Income in Asia during the period of 2010 to 2019. This study uses the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) method. The results of this study indicate that Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis (EKC) is valid in the country of High Income and Upper-Middle Income. In addition, there is a non-linear relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI), tourism, Export, and imports on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The interaction variables, which are a foreign direct investment with tourism and foreign direct investment with Export. Each of them is reducing carbon dioxide emissions only in high-income countries. Meanwhile, the interaction variables between foreign direct investment and imports reduce carbon dioxide emissions in high-income countries. However, it increases the carbon dioxide emissions in the upper-middle-income country