The reallocation effect of China's provincial power transmission and trade on regional heavy metal emissions

Wendong Wei,Zengcheng Xin,Yong Geng,Jiashuo Li,Mingtao Yao,Yaqin Guo,Pengfei Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102529

Abstract

SummaryCoal-fired power plants (CFPPs) are key point sources to atmospheric heavy metal (HM) emissions in China. Unevenly distributed CFPPs lead to large-scale interregional power transmission, as well as corresponding environmental emissions transfer. However, the effect of power transmission on HM reallocation remains poorly understood. Here, we traced HM (including Hg, As, Se, Pb, Cd, and Cr) emission flows through electricity transmission and regional trade and calculated China's multi-perspective electricity-related HM emissions from 2010 to 2015. Results show that in 2015, power transmission and regional trade caused 226.5 t (14% of total emissions) and 453.6 t (28%) of HM emission flows, respectively, leading to great differences in provincial HM emissions under different perspectives (e.g., Beijing's consumption-based emission was 15.5 times higher than the city's production-based emission in 2015). Our study provides valuable insights for fairly allocating provincial HM emission reduction responsibility and formulating synergistic emission mitigation strategies among regions.

Highlights

China has the largest number of coal-fired power plants (CFPPs), which are responsible for more than half of the country’s coal consumption (Peng et al, 2020)
Distributed Coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) lead to large-scale interregional power transmission, as well as corresponding environmental emissions transfer
We traced heavy metal (HM) emission flows through electricity transmission and regional trade and calculated China’s multi-perspective electricity-related HM emissions from 2010 to 2015

Summary

Introduction

China has the largest number of coal-fired power plants (CFPPs), which are responsible for more than half of the country’s coal consumption (Peng et al, 2020). Zhou et al (2019) calculated six HM emissions (namely, Hg, As, Pb, Cr, Se, and Cd) generated by decommissioned CFPPs in China in 2010 and evaluated the impacts of shutting down these CFPPs on HM emissions These studies only focus on production-based (end-of-pipe) electricity-related HM emissions (PE-HM emissions) and ignore the reallocation effects of power transmission and regional trade on regional HM emissions (Ma and Zhang, 2019), which may lead to cross-regional HM emission leakage (similar to carbon leakage) (Li et al, 2013; Naegele and Zaklan, 2019). Ignoring the HM emission flows through power transmission and regional trade may lead to an unfair allocation of regional environmental responsibilities associated with HM emissions, resulting in regional environmental inequality It can undermine the effectiveness of HM emission reduction policies (Wei et al, 2020b; Zhang et al, 2020)

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