Carbon Emission Reduction Technology Research Articles

Dynamic evolution characteristics and driving factors of carbon emissions in prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin of China.

This paper focuses on the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics, as well as the driving factors, of carbon emissions in the prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin (YB). The paper's findings will aid in promoting ecological conservation and high-quality development in the region. The initiatives undertaken in the YB are a significant national strategy towards achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. To fully investigate the spatiotemporal evolution process, as well as the typical characteristics of their carbon emissions, conventional, and spatial Markov transition probability matrices were developed utilizing YB's panel data for 55 prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019. The generalized Divisia index decomposition method (GDIM) cleverly uses this data to conduct a complete analysis of the dynamics and driving processes influencing the change in carbon emissions in these cities. However, the evolution of carbon emissions in prefecture-level cities has reached a point of stability that maintains the original state, making it challenging to make meaningful short-term progress. The data indicates that prefecture-level cities in the YB are emitting more carbon dioxide on average. Neighborhood types in these cities significantly influence the transformation of carbon emissions. Low-emission areas can encourage a reduction in carbon emissions, whereas high-emission areas can encourage an increase. The spatial organisation of carbon emissions exhibits a "high-high convergence, low-low convergence, high-pulling low, low-inhibiting high" club convergence phenomenon. Carbon emissions rise with per capita carbon emissions, energy consumed, technology, and output scale, whereas it falls with carbon technology intensity and output carbon intensity. Hence, instead of enhancing the role of increase-oriented variables, prefecture-level cities in the YB should actively engage these reduction-oriented forces. The YB's key pathways for lowering carbon emissions include boosting research and development, promoting and applying carbon emission reduction technologies, lowering output carbon intensity and energy intensity, and improving energy use effectiveness.

Evolutionary game between government and shipping enterprises based on shipping cycle and carbon quota

With the opening of the national carbon trading market and the coming of the post-epidemic era, the government actively promotes the carbon quota policy to fundamentally achieve carbon emission reduction. This paper corresponds the shipping cycle to the shipping market demand situation during the epidemic, incorporates the shipping cycle characteristics and government quota characteristics into a multi-stage evolutionary game model. Later, the study analyzes the equilibrium points of the game parties at each stage and finally investigates the influence of factors such as technological improvement on the strategy choice of shipping enterprises through sensitivity analysis. The study found that the government’s carbon quota policy is influenced by shipping market demand. During the peak shipping season, the government’s quota policy is binding on shipping enterprises. In the low season of shipping, the binding effect of government’s quota policy on shipping enterprises will be reduced, or even appear to be invalid. Therefore, the government should forecast the demand situation of the shipping market, gradually relax the regulation during the peak season of shipping, and strengthen the regulation before the low season of shipping. Shipping enterprises should increase the research and development of carbon emission reduction technology to reduce carbon emissions from the root to realize the sustainable development of ports and marine-related industries in the post-epidemic era.

Retailer-driven incentive contracts for carbon emission reduction with carbon tax and yield uncertainty

Since the tax of carbon emission is popular and consumers are exhibiting low-carbon preference, a manufacturer may invest to adopt carbon emission reduction (CER) technologies to produce green products. In face of high cost of CER investment and random yield in low carbon production processes for the manufacturer, this paper explores the incentive role of the contracts of revenue-sharing (RS) and cost-sharing with subsidy (CSS) offered by a retailer in a low-carbon supply chain. Theoretical analysis and numerical experiments show that both RS and CSS can promote the manufacturer’s Carbon Emission Reduction (CER) efforts and improve the efficiency of the supply chain, and RS boosts these more than CSS. RS and CSS can also decrease firms’ profit losses due to yield uncertainty, and RS also decreases firms’ profit losses more than CSS. Moreover, to motivate manufacturer’s CER efforts, the government should levy the highest-possible carbon tax under RS, the medium-level carbon tax under CSS, and the lowest-possible carbon tax for the decentralized case, and levy the same carbon tax on the centralized case with that under RS.

Research on the Theory and Development of Carbon Emissions Trading Market under the Background of ‘Double Carbon’

In recent years, China’s carbon trading market has achieved good emission reduction results but it is not yet perfect. Carbon trading mechanisms are facing huge challenges. Through the analysis of the current industry carbon trading market, the problems existing affecting the process of the carbon emission trading market are deeply discussed, providing a methodology for the regional carbon trading mechanism and the implementation of the national macro carbon emission reduction targets. It puts forward three challenges to carbon trading market cognition, carbon trading subject and carbon emission reduction technology, to contribute to achieving carbon peak, carbon neutralization.

Tracing production carbon emission transfer through global value chains: Towards a top gainer principle

This study proposes the top gainer principle (TGP) and builds a calculation model based on the TGP to measure production carbon emissions transfer (PCET) in the context of global value chains. Compared with embodied carbon research, the innovative TGP model establishes a traceability mechanism based on the difference between responsibility and actual emissions from the perspective of the value chain, avoiding the endless debate between producer and consumer responsibility, which makes the TGP model more reasonable and fairer. In addition, using long-term input-output data, this study measures spatiotemporal patterns and the network evolution of global PCET. The results show that the total amount of global PCET has increased, and the regions with high outflows of PCET mainly include East Asia, North America, Central and Western Europe, and Russia. Among these regions, the United States and China accounted for the largest proportion of PCET outflow. By contrast, South America and Africa are typical low-outflow regions. From North America via central Europe, Turkey, Iran, South Asia to China, is a “W”-shaped high net outflow belt. The overall concentration of the global PCET network first decreased and then increased, and the network structure evolved into a bipolar network group with China and the United States as the core. Under the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, the network structure showed a trend towards decentralization. This study suggests that efforts should be made to strengthen the responsibility of major countries, enhance the supervision of lead firms, establish a carbon emission transfer compensation system within value chains, and promote the development and spread of carbon emission reduction technologies to facilitate the reduction of global carbon emissions.

A Study on the Impact of Effective Use of Geographical Indications on Carbon Reduction Technology in the Production Layer of Traditional Chinese Medicine Industry in China

The double carbon target is a solemn commitment made by the Chinese government to the world, and emission reduction and sink increase in the agricultural production process is an important way to achieve the double carbon target. However, the current status of green production in Chinese medicine is not optimistic, which is not conducive to agricultural emission reduction on the one hand, and will inevitably restrict the long-term well-being of the traditional Chinese medicine industry in driving economic growth on the other. Based on a microdata survey of Eucommia farmers in Lueyang County, Shaanxi Province, this study empirically analyzed the effect of effective use of GI on farmers' adoption of carbon emission reduction technologies using the Propensity Score Matching method and explored the degree of adoption of each carbon emission reduction technology by farmers using the entropy weighting TOPSIS. The results show that the effective use of GI has a positive impact on farmers in terms of fertilizer and medicine savings, and no impact in terms of water and energy saving. And the ease of implementation of the emission reduction measures had a positive effect on the adoption by farmers.

Analysis of the interprovincial embodied carbon flow network of China's exports.

We calculate the embodied carbon emissions of China’s through the multiregional input–output (MRIO) method, then we construct the interprovincial embodied carbon flow networks of China’s exports based on the mean threshold, and the application of complex network analysis to conduct a detailed examination of the overall characteristics, key nodes and edges, and community structure of China’s interprovincial embodied carbon flow network. We extended the embodied carbon flow network analysis at the provincial level. The results demonstrated the following: (1) The interprovincial embodied carbon flow network of China’s exports has small-world and scale-free characteristics. The node degree probability distribution curves for the networks obviously conformed to a decreasing power law distribution, indicating that a few industrial sectors carry a large amount of embodied carbon and suggesting that reducing the embodied carbon of China’s exports could yield twice the results with half the effort as long as attention is paid to a few sectors. (2) The key nodes and edges in the networks show that industrial sectors and production chains such as the power and heat production and supply industry, the petroleum processing, coking, and nuclear fuel processing industry, and the metal smelting and calendering industry play the role of key “bridges” in the entire network, among which Guangdong, Hebei, Jiangsu, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi are important node provinces and the main flow paths for the generation of embodied carbon in national exports. These industrial sectors and production chains should bolster their policies to encourage the innovation of carbon emission reduction technologies and decrease carbon emissions, so as to reduce the embodied carbon of national exports on a large scale. (3) The number of communities firstly increased then decreased from 2007 to 2017, while the aggregation coefficient of the node and correlation density within first community displayed firstly downward then upward trends, reflecting firstly decentralization then centralization of the interprovincial embodied carbon flow.

Sustainable development of green buildings in China and evaluation framework of decarbonization technology of AAC production

AbstractThis paper discusses the path to achieve carbon neutrality in the construction field, which is divided into five parts: (1) China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals and consensus on the development of the construction industry; (2) The sustainable green building development trend and relevant policies in China; (3) The green building evaluation system and common software in China; (4) Building carbon emission evaluation model and the decarbonizing tools for the whole life cycle of construction projects; (5) Carbon emission reduction technology evaluation framework of autoclaved aerated concrete production in China. Through the discussion of this paper, we will jointly provide intellectual and technical support for the exploration and implementation of building carbon neutralization path.

Precooling energy and carbon emission reduction technology investment model in a fresh food cold chain based on a differential game

The reasonable investment of suppliers and retailers in precooling and carbon emission reduction technology is important to maintain the freshness of products and improve the overall profit of the supply chain. This paper establishes a game model to examine the impact of the relationship between fresh food suppliers and retailers on the level of R&D investment in precooling technology and carbon emission reduction technology and thence on the overall revenue of the supply chain. This model considers the three cases of whether the two subjects cooperate or not and whether the retailer shares the cost of suppliers’ investment in precooling technology. It is found that the overall supply chain revenue and the level of R&D investment in both technologies are higher in the case of cooperation between the two subjects than in the case of non-cooperation. In a decentralized case when the two subjects do not cooperate, the overall supply chain revenue, and the level of R&D investment in the two technologies, depend on the relationship between the retail price and the wholesale price.

Examining key impact factors of energy-related carbon emissions in 66 Belt and Road Initiative countries.

Climate change with global warming as the main feature associated with fossil energy use has been recognized as a threat to public health and welfare. Energy-related carbon emission reduction is a more serious challenge for BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) countries with rapid economic development. Examining key impact factors is necessary and helpful. This paper is the first study providing detailed country-by-country analyses aiming to identify the key drivers and inhibitors of energy-related carbon emission in 66 BRI countries with more systematic impact factors. The results show that: (1) Economic development (A), population (Ps), urbanization (Pu), and industrialization (Ss) are the key drivers for 52%, 26%, 11%, and 6% countries of BRI countries. Technological progress (T), energy consumption structure (E), and tertiary industry proportion (St) serve as key inhibitors for 65%, 17%, and 8% countries of BRI countries. (2) Different carbon emission reduction strategies should be formed on different geographical scales. At the international level, carbon emission reduction consensus should be reached and carbon emission reduction targets should be formulated. At the regional level of the Belt and Road Initiative, a carbon emission reduction cooperation fund should be established, and carbon emission reduction technologies and measures should be exchanged and data should be shared to promote the green development of the Belt and Road. At the national level, there should be carbon emission reduction policies reflecting national characteristics. At the local level, there should be specific carbon reduction measures in line with local conditions.

Road life-cycle carbon dioxide emissions and emission reduction technologies: A review

Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions from the road sector have attracted increasing attention in current years. This paper attempted to provide a systematic review of the existing research efforts on road life-cycle CO 2 emissions by analyzing the system's boundary division, identifying the CO 2 emission contributions of each life-cycle phase, listing major emission contributors, exploring related emission reduction technologies, and giving directions for future development. The research showed that the road life cycle is usually divided into five phases: material production, construction, use, maintenance and end-of-life (EOL) phases. The use phase and the initial construction stage (including material production and construction phases) contributed the most CO 2 emissions during the road life cycle. In detail, the production of cement, asphalt and steel were the three main emission contributors in the material production phase. The pavement roughness, albedo, and concrete carbonation were the main factors affecting emissions in the use phase. In addition, emission reduction technologies such as using recycled materials and recycling techniques, lowering mixing temperature, and equipment energy substitution were commonly used to reduce emissions from material production and construction phases. The application of emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage, carbon sink, and the use of hydrogen, solar and photovoltaic in the road sector may have emission reduction potentials and should be highlighted more in future studies. • The CO 2 emission contributions and major contributors of each road phase are identified. • The commonly-used CO 2 emission reduction technologies for major emission contributors are summarized. • Recycled materials, advanced recycling and mixing techniques, and energy substitution are commonly used to reduce emissions. • Emerging technologies such as carbon sink have emission reduction potentials in the road sector but need further studies.

Research on the central bank's carbon emission reduction support tool under the dual carbon target

Under the background that central banks have successively issued green financial policies to deal with climate change, on November 8, 2021, the people's Bank of China officially announced the creation and launch of carbon emission reduction support tools to help achieve the "double carbon goal" as soon as possible. Support the development of key areas such as clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection and carbon emission reduction technologies in a steady, orderly, accurate and direct manner, and leverage more social funds to promote carbon emission reduction. This structural monetary policy tool is different from the traditional monetary policy. It will drive the accurate delivery of basic currency through its special transmission mechanism; Stimulate the overall growth of green credit scale; Promote the adjustment of industrial structure; Help to further improve the relevant information disclosure and review mechanism. At the same time, as a long-term financial instrument, carbon emission reduction support tool still has great room for improvement in the future. It is expected to be continuously improved in supporting credit policies, issuing objects, supporting industries, disclosure mechanism and other aspects.

Low-Carbon Strategies Considering Corporate Environmental Responsibility: Based on Carbon Trading and Carbon Reduction Technology Investment

This paper focuses on the optimal strategic choice of carbon trading and carbon reduction technology investment under the cap-and-trade system. We consider a carbon-dependent production enterprise that trades carbon emission rights or invests in carbon reduction technologies under the regulation of the cap-and-trade system. The enterprise undertakes corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and aims to maximize the comprehensive benefits of both the economy and the environment. Using numerical simulation, we analyze the impacts of the CER coefficient and initial carbon quotas on the comprehensive benefits, optimal emission reduction rate, and production quantity of the enterprise. Our main contribution is studying the low-carbon strategic option for CER production enterprises to maximize the comprehensive benefits by trading carbon emission permits or investing in carbon emission reduction technologies. We found that the carbon emission trading mechanism plays an important role in promoting enterprises to reduce carbon emissions and is a beneficial supplement to the carbon cap policy. Under different initial carbon quotas allocated by the government, the manufacturer strategically chooses to trade carbon emission rights or invest in carbon reduction technologies. CER is a significant factor in encouraging companies to reduce carbon emissions proactively.

Research on the realization path of carbon emission reduction in Zhejiang Province

Zhejiang Province is a developed province in China. Over the years, the scale of economic development has been expanding. At the same time, Zhejiang province attaches great importance to reducing carbon emissions and has achieved remarkable results. Based on the grey correlation theory, this paper analyses the influencing factors of carbon emission in Zhejiang Province, and puts forward a series of suggestions for realizing carbon emission reduction in Zhejiang Province. The results show that the factors affecting carbon emissions in Zhejiang Province, in order of importance from high to low, are as follows:total population; total GDP; financial investment in education; financial investment in environmental protection and financial investment in science and technology. Therefore, in order to achieve the goal of carbon emission reduction in Zhejiang Province, we should focus on the following aspects: controlling the population and advocating green consumption; Improving the green growth level of local economy; increasing education expenditure to improve the people’s awareness of energy saving and environmental protection; increasing financial science and technology expenditure to develop advanced carbon emission reduction technology; Further increasing investment in environmental protection to purchase and configure more advanced environmental protection equipment.

Impacts of Supply Chain Competition on Firms' Carbon Emission Reduction and Social Welfare under Cap-and-Trade Regulation.

In the carbon neutrality era, firms are facing increasingly intense environmental pressure and market competition. This paper considers two competitive supply chains with consumers’ low-carbon preference under the cap-and-trade regulation, each of which consists of one manufacturer and one retailer. Considering competition or integration in vertical and horizontal directions, four different supply chain structures are modeled. By applying a game-theoretical approach, the equilibrium pricing, carbon emission reduction (CER) level, profit, and social welfare are obtained. Through comparison and analysis, the economic and environmental impacts of supply chain competition are explored. The results show that (1) the carbon quota acts as a kind of financial subsidy and brings direct economic profit to the supply chain, which cannot be used to incentivize the firm to invest in CER technology; (2) the HCVI strategy can bring the highest CER level, the most market demand, and social welfare among the four strategies; (3) for the enterprise and the government, it is recommended to take measures and enact policies to strengthen the vertical integration and horizontal competition between supply chains. Our study can guide firms on how to cope with increasingly fierce industry competition and environmental pressure by adjusting their operational decisions and supply chain structure.

Carbon peak and its mitigation implications for China in the post-pandemic era

China’s carbon peak greatly impacts global climate targets. Limited studies have comprehensively analyzed the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, changing emission network, and recent carbon intensity (CI) reduction on the carbon peak and the corresponding mitigation implications. Using a unique dataset at different levels, we project China’s CO2 emission by 2035 and analyze the time, volume, driver patterns, complex emission network, and policy implications of China’s carbon peak in the post- pandemic era. We develop an ensemble time-series model with machine learning approaches as the projection benchmark, and show that China’s carbon peak will be achieved by 2021–2026 with > 80% probability. Most Chinese cities and counties have not achieved carbon peaks response to the priority-peak policy and the current implementation of CI reduction should thus be strengthened. While there is a "trade off" between the application of carbon emission reduction technology and economic recovery in the post-pandemic era, a close cooperation of interprovincial CO2 emission is also warranted.

Optimal Pricing, Advertising, Production, Inventory and Investing Policies in a Multi-Stage Sustainable Supply Chain

In this paper, the study of a sustainable production–inventory model with price and advertisement dependent on demand considering carbon emission reduction technology is investigated. The aim of this paper is to determine the optimal appropriate pricing, advertising, production, inventory, and capital investment decisions under various carbon emission policies to maximize the joint total profit of a multi-stage supply chain system. Various theoretical results and an algorithm are provided to verify and obtain the optimal solution of the problem. Further, the model is verified by numerical examples, and the robustness check of parameter variation is also analyzed. Finally, some management implications for decision makers are drawn from numerical examples. In summary, this study puts forward more realistic modeling hypothesis, which is beneficial to the academic research, and the research results can provide relevant decision makers with a model for managing a sustainable supply chain.

Progress in carbon emission reduction technology in fossil fuel-based hydrogen production

Today, almost all hydrogen production is based on fossil fuels. Hydrogen production plants contribute to harmful emissions in the atmosphere, which is one of the causes of global warming. In order to obtain hydrogen as an entirely green energy source, there is an urgent requirement to significantly reduce or even completely eliminate carbon emissions from fossil fuel-based hydrogen production processes. In this context, new efforts should be increased to develop hydrogen production technologies that produce lower levels of harmful emissions. The development of carbon capture technology by the chemical cycle offers great potential to reduce harmful emissions generated during hydrogen production from fossil fuels. In this study, hydrogen production methods from fossil sources have been reviewed and the recent studies of chemical looping technology for hydrogen production were presented.

The integration of hydrogenation and carbon capture utilisation and storage technology: A potential low‐carbon approach to chemical synthesis in China

The development of carbon emission reduction technologies and clean energy utilisation are two critical drivers for reducing and controlling greenhouse gas (GHG) emission from human activities. Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) is an established and crucial emission reduction technology capable of achieving near-zero-emission from fossil fuels. Hydrogen, a zero-carbon fuel, provides energy security while improving air quality. However, hydrogen is commonly derived from fossil fuels with significant associated CO2 emission. Hence, this study investigates the feasibility of integrating CCUS in the hydrogen industry, particularly from technical, sustainability, and policy perspectives. This study also critically reviews existing CCUS and hydrogen production technologies and discusses the prospects and challenges of each. Studies show that CO2 enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) and CO2 enhanced coal-bed methane recovery (CO2-ECBM) are promising CCUS technologies in China, while producing clean hydrogen from fossil fuels with CCUS and water electrolysis are ideal development route. Specifically, this study proposes the coupling technical route of CCUS + SMR (steam methane reforming) and CCUS + CTH (coal-to-hydrogen) to accelerate carbon emission reduction by 2050 considering their promising carbon reduction potential and the ratio of hydrogen with CCUS. Besides, CO2 hydrogenation integrated chemical production is becoming increasingly popular to achieve carbon emission reduction and low-carbon economy. However, the relatively high costs and lack of hydrogen transportation infrastructure is currently the major bottleneck restricting the development of CCUS and hydrogen industry. Therefore, government subsidies, standardised operation of the carbon market, and technological innovation are useful strategies to address this issue.

Commercialization of CO2 Electrolysis By Haldor Topsoe

Electrolysis is an enabling technology for Power-to-X solutions, where X can be hydrogen or other chemicals, such as carbon monoxide (CO). When electrolysis is combined with renewable electricity, the production of fuels and chemicals can be decoupled from fossil resources which paves the way for an energy system based on 100% renewable energy. It is Haldor Topsoe’s vision to be recognized as a global leader in carbon emission reduction technologies by 2024 and electrolysis technologies will play a key role in achieving this goal. Compared to other electrolysis technologies, SOEC allows for the conversion of CO2 into useful chemicals (such as CO) at very high efficiencies and at a faradaic yield of 100% (1,2). Haldor Topsoe is commercializing the CO2 electrolysis technology under the tradename eCOsTM: a platform for on-site, on-demand CO generation from CO2 feedstock for customers requiring a reliable and safe feed of carbon monoxide at a scale of up to 1000 Nm3/h. Two identical eCOsTM plants, each with a capacity of 96 Nm3 CO/h will be commissioned in 2021 in Ohio, USA (Fig 1). Once in operation, these two plants will not only be the largest SOEC plants in the world, but also the first SOEC plants sold and operated on fully commercial terms (i.e. without the need for subsidies) (3). Furthermore, with a total active cell area of around 40 m2, the plants will be hitherto the largest demonstration of direct electrochemical conversion of CO2 into chemicals. In this paper, progress towards the commissioning of the two eCOs plants will be reported, as well as stack- and system-level tests demonstrating long-term operation in dry CO2 electrolysis.