Reducing the Arctic carbon footprint through low-carbon technologies and wind power plants

Abstract

The average air temperature in the Arctic is increasing twice as fast as the global temperature due to the geographical location and climatic features. Arctic temperature has a larger inter-annual and long-term variability than global. The concentration of sea ice and its area over the past 30 years in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased by 2.5 times. The volume of greenhouse gas in the world is more than 55 billion tons CO2eq. The main sources of greenhouse gas emissions are energy facilities, which account for about 30% of all emissions. The 2015 Paris Agreement addresses the critical interests of the greenhouse gasses and brings attention to a wide range of issues this century to 2 degrees. The long-term emissions data from power plants on different types of fuel show that renewable and nuclear energy are low-carbon technologies. The world energy industry is developing within the 4th energy transition, characterized by a gradual release of fossil fuels, excluding climate change, and an active possible release of renewable energy sources (RES). In 2020, global electricity production, apparently due to the global weakening of production, the pandemic slightly decreased and decreased by 26,823 TWh. However, with a general decrease in electricity production, the share of energy produced from RES (together with hydropower) increased by 5.6% and amounted to 7,443 TWh. Overall, low-carbon development technologies (nuclear and renewable) consume over 37% of total energy production. Greenhouse gas emissions from the production and transportation of hydrocarbons by global oil and gas companies amount to more than 800 million tons of CO2eq, including more than 100 million tons required in the Arctic territory of the Russian Federation. Oil and gas companies that operate in the Arctic, as well as industrial and mining companies, are focused on the Sustainability Reports in achieving specific goals and their implementation on low-carbon development. Emissions reduction in the Arctic by taking into account low-carbon development using renewable energy sources can be up to 50% till 2050. The presence of high wind potential in the Arctic zones, the modernization of an economical diesel power plant and the development of new supply systems leads to technologies of modular wind-diesel power plants with intelligent control system (WDPP), adapted to harsh climatic conditions and providing of diesel fuel substitution (more than 50%). Reduction of greenhouse gases when introducing WDPP can be more than 1.0 million tons of CO2eq.