European CO2 Emissions Research Articles

Nearly zero energy building renovation: From energy efficiency to environmental efficiency, a pilot case study

Greenhouse gas emissions have been recognized as one of the major cause of the global warming phenomena. The built environment accounts for more than 40% of the overall energy consumption and 36% of the overall CO2 emissions in Europe. Recent studies show that housing is one of the most responsible sector for world ecological impacts. The European Parliament developed the concept of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB), characterized by a very low energy demand and a high renewable energy on-site production. In fact, energy efficiency is the first step towards the ambitious aim to reduce of 80% by 2050 the EU carbon emissions. The zero-energy building target is an achievable goal, which relies on a careful design that encompasses a synergy between passive and low-energy strategies. However, considering the whole life cycle of buildings, NZEBs reduce the operational energy close to zero, increasing the relevancy of the embodied energy, which occurs during the construction phase. Balancing the values of the operational and embodied energy is necessary to minimize buildings footprint on the environment. In this paper the renovation and re-use of the Atika building, a demonstrative energy-efficient building, is presented as case study of an environmental efficient methodology for energy retrofitting. The case relies on the methodology developed by Active House, a holistic vision for sustainable buildings labeling.

Reflections on the Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

In Germany the Volkswagen Diesel scandal is originally a market failure because the harm from vehicle emissions to public health and to the environment is neither internalized by car producers nor by car drivers. This market failure is neither corrected by public regulation nor by civil liability. There is regulatory failure because the control of NOx emissions by the regulatory agency (Kraftfahrtbundesamt) was lenient. There is also corporate governance failure within Volkswagen where the fraud of installing a manipulative software happened. And there is dysfunctional law, which does not allow the bundling of similar interests of car owners due to industrial lobbying. It seems that the civil courts kept their full independence in this matter. Courts of lower instance in their large majority decided that owners should get their money back. However so far less than 50.000 out of 2.4 million car owners took action against Volkswagen or car dealers. The others shy away from risky litigation. The procedures take much time. It is unlikely that the Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof) will take a decision until the end of 2018, which would end legal uncertainty. After that date all limitation periods will expire. The strong signal of a Supreme Court decision will most probably be sent only after the end of the limitation period. For Volkswagen the consequence would then probably be that it has to pay some hundred million Euros as compared with more than 14 billion Euros if all affected would have made their claim. Since the 1990s, European legislators have given an additional boost to modern turbocharged direct injection diesel engines by applying laxer standards for NOx emissions and particulate matter than to gasoline cars. Miravete et al. (2017) estimate that this special treatment for diesel vehicles in Europe, combined with preferential fuel taxes for diesel, corresponds to an implicit import tariff of two to three times the official rate with respect to non-diesel car exporters, such as the USA and Japan. This policy was well perceived by European car producers with their comparatively large share of diesel cars and made it easier for the politicians to comply with European CO2 emission standards. The converse public choice constellation holds for the US, where politicians have little interest in supporting diesel cars. On one hand, reduction of CO2 emissions has never been of highest priority in the USA, probably because the relevant stakeholders have been afraid of losing competitiveness with respect to emerging market economies like China and India. On the other hand, since many decades, politicians have been facing strong pressure by large parts of the urban population suffering from ambient air pollution. Thus, it makes no wonder that US car manufacturers are not familiar with modern diesel technology, and the share of diesel passenger cars remains low, NOx emission standards are high and law enforcement stricter. The interest of car manufacturers carries enormous weight in German politics and must be balanced through permanent and increasing pressure by the victims of emission standard infringements. The (inefficient) bias in favor of car producers’ interests could be mitigated by shifting the competence for type approval from the Federal Ministry of Transport, which is tightly connected to the car industry, to the Federal Ministry for the Environment, which arguably has a stronger commitment to protecting air quality. Moreover, the removal of legal obstacles to coordinated court actions by affected car owners would improve their chance to enforce their interests via civil liability actions.

Evaluation of refurbishment alternatives for an Italian vernacular building considering architectural heritage, energy efficiency and costs

Despite the majority of legislative requirements in terms of energy performances is not addressed to historical buildings, there is an increasing consciousness on their relevance to reach the European CO2 emissions’ reduction goals. This paper engages the theme of traditional buildings’ refurbishment, with a view to the necessity of a conscious intervention in terms of heritage preservation, energy efficiency and financial viability. In particular, the research analyzed a real case study of a rural building located in North Italy; the main objective of the study is to compare two different refurbishment scenarios by simultaneously considering architectural, energy and financial aspects.

Economic optimisation of European supply chains for CO2 capture, transport and sequestration

Diminishing the anthropogenic generation of greenhouse gases is one of the key challenges of the twenty-first century. Considering the current state of affairs, it is barely impossible to reduce emissions without relying on CO2 capture and sequestration technologies. In a situation where a large-scale infrastructure is yet to be developed, mathematical programming techniques can provide valuable tools to decision makers for optimising their choices. Here, a mixed integer linear programming framework for the strategic design and planning of a large European supply chain for carbon geological storage is presented. The European territory is discretised so as to allow for a spatially explicit definition of large emission clusters. As regards CO2 capture, post-combustion, oxy-fuel combustion and pre-combustion are considered as possible technological options, whereas both pipelines (inshore and offshore) and ships are taken into account as possible transport means. The overall network is economically optimised over a 20 years’ time horizon to provide the geographic location and scale of capture and sequestration sites as well as the most convenient transport means and routes. Different scenarios (capturing up to 70% of European CO2 emissions from large stationary sources) are analysed and commented on. Results demonstrate the good European potential for carbon sequestration and give some indications on the total cost for CO2 capture, transport and sequestration. Capture costs are found to be the major contribution to total cost, while transport and sequestration costs are never higher than 10% of the investment required to set in motion and operate the whole network. The overall costs for a European carbon capture, transport and storage supply chain were estimated in the range of 27–38 €/ton of CO2.

Models and scientific tools for regulatory purposes: The case of CO2 emissions from light duty vehicles in Europe

A key question faced by policy makers throughout the world today is how policy can follow and adapt to the fast technological changes, to the increasing complexity of various scientific fields and to new practices appearing as a result of an increasingly interconnected world. In a rapidly developing and changing landscape, traditional policy making approaches and policy options should be reconsidered in order to provide the optimal benefits to society. A typical example is the field of vehicle fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in Europe. Modern vehicle technologies are changing fast and policy instruments regulating their design should evolve accordingly in order to remain updated. In this context Europe has recently upgraded the emission test procedure for the type-approval of light duty vehicles by adopting the new WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light duty vehicle Test Procedure). In order to accelerate its introduction a new modelling tool had to be introduced in the certification process together with new software based instruments, which had to be developed and implemented. This case could open the path to fully software-based vehicle certification in which modelling tools might be applied to reduce the current opportunities of manipulations offered by physical tests.

The benefits of cooperation in a highly renewable European electricity network

To reach ambitious European CO2 emission reduction targets, most scenarios of future European electricity systems rely on large shares of wind and solar photovoltaic power generation. We interpolate between two concepts for balancing the variability of these renewable sources: balancing at continental scales using the transmission grid and balancing locally with storage. This interpolation is done by systematically restricting transmission capacities from the optimum level to zero. We run techno-economic cost optimizations for the capacity investment and dispatch of wind, solar, hydroelectricity, natural gas power generation and transmission, as well as storage options such as pumped-hydro, battery, and hydrogen storage. The simulations assume a 95% CO2 emission reduction compared to 1990, and are run over a full historical year of weather and electricity demand for 30 European countries. In the cost-optimal system with high levels of transmission expansion, energy generation is dominated by wind (65%) and hydro (15%), with average system costs comparable to today's system. Restricting transmission shifts the balance in favour of solar and storage, driving up costs by a third. As the restriction is relaxed, 85% of the cost benefits of the optimal grid expansion can be captured already with only 44% of the transmission volume.

A simulation-based methodology for quantifying European passenger car fleet CO2 emissions

Common approaches to assess the evolution of CO2 emissions from road vehicles are usually based on (a) estimates of future fleet composition, where most approaches consider vehicles at a rather aggregated level, and (b) emission factors, which are either based on CO2 certification data or statistically-provided functional relationships obtained from real world test data, or a combination of the two. This approach has certain limitations in capturing the effect of new technologies on CO2 emission related policy initiatives. The present study proposes a new method for the detailed calculation of the European light duty vehicle fleet CO2 emissions, which could help to overcome such limitations, achieve better results when making CO2 emissions projections and better support future policies. Simulation at individual vehicle level is combined with fleet composition data, retrieved from the official European CO2 emissions monitoring database, and publicly available data regarding individual vehicle characteristics in order to calculate vehicle CO2 emissions and fuel consumption over different conditions and vehicle configurations. The methodology is applied to analyze and assess the impact of the introduction of the new certification procedure, the Worldwide Light duty vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP), on the European car fleet CO2 emissions. Results show an average WLTP to NEDC CO2 emissions ratio of approximately 1.2. The increases in CO2 emissions are higher for cars exhibiting lower NEDC emission values (additional 29 and 25gCO2/km for vehicles emitting 100 and 119gCO2/km, respectively). At higher emission levels (about 250CO2g/km) WLTP and NEDC present comparable results. Three possible scenarios for the translation of projected NEDC CO2 emissions to WLTP-based ones are quantified.

Stochastic Differential Equation Models for the Price of European CO2 Emissions Allowances

Understanding the stochastic nature of emissions allowances is crucial for risk management in emissions trading markets. In this study, we discuss the emissions allowances spot price within the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme: Powernext and European Climate Exchange. To compare the fitness of five stochastic differential equations (SDEs) to the European Union allowances spot price, we apply regression theory to obtain the point and interval estimations for the parameters of the SDEs. An empirical evaluation demonstrates that the mean reverting square root process (MRSRP) has the best fitness of five SDEs to forecast the spot price. To reduce the degree of smog, we develop a new trading scheme in which firms have to hand many more allowances to the government when they emit one unit of air pollution on heavy pollution days, versus one allowance on clean days. Thus, we set up the SDE MRSRP model with Markovian switching to analyse the evolution of the spot price in such a scheme. The analysis shows that the allowances spot price will not jump too much in the new scheme. The findings of this study could contribute to developing a new type of emissions trading.

Effect of draught conditions and ignition technique on combustion performance of firewood roomheaters

Firewood roomheaters are popular, widespread and important for reaching European CO2 emission targets. Since they contribute significantly to local air pollution, they have to be optimized towards minimal emission release, especially in real-life operation. Draught conditions and user behavior, particularly the ignition technique, significantly affect the emission and efficiency performance of firewood roomheaters. This study assessed the effects of the respective parameters experimentally. The results revealed a clear correlation between draught conditions and thermal efficiency. Increased draught conditions up to 48 Pa significantly decreased thermal efficiency by 6%–11% absolutely. However, for gaseous emissions no clear trend was observed. Accordingly, CO and OGC emissions increased at higher draught conditions for one tested roomheater by 30% and 60%, but decreased for two other tested roomheaters by 13%–45%. For PM emissions no effect of increased draught conditions was evident. Top-down ignition technique did not lead to a significant decrease of PM emissions compared to bottom-up ignition. In contrast, bottom-up ignition led to best thermal efficiencies. The use of either spruce or beech as kindling material revealed no significant relevance for the ignition performance.

The drivers of long-run CO2 emissions in Europe, North America and Japan since 1800

Using an extended Kaya decomposition, we identify the drivers of long-run CO2 emissions since 1800 for Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK, the United States, Canada and Japan. By considering biomass and carbon-free energy sources along with fossil fuels, we are able to shed light on the effects of past and present energy transitions on CO2 emissions. We find that at low levels of income per capita, fuel switching from biomass to fossil fuels is the main contributing factor to emissions growth. As income levels increase, scale effects, especially income effects, become dominant. Technological change proves to be the main offsetting factor in the long run. Particularly in the last decades, technological change and fuel switching have become important contributors to the decrease in emissions in Europe. Our results also contrast the differentiated historical paths of CO2 emissions taken by these countries.

Pathways to a low-carbon iron and steel industry in the medium-term – the case of Germany

The iron and steel industry is a major industrial emitter of carbon dioxide globally and in Germany. If European and German climate targets were set as equal proportional reduction targets (referred to here as “flat” targets) among sectors, the German steel industry would have to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions from about 60 million metric tons currently to 28–34 million metric tons by 2030. Technical options to further reduce CO2 that are based on existing production processes are limited. Hence, in the future, the CO2 emissions of the steel industry could be reduced by alternative and new production processes and variations in production levels. This paper describes four production pathways from 2015 to 2035 that reveal the impact of constant, increasing and decreasing production levels as well as different production processes. The diffusion of energy-efficient technologies, the increase of renewables in the German electricity mix and the age and lifetime of blast furnaces are considered as well. The findings suggest that the German steel sector will only manage to achieve its European CO2 emissions reduction target for 2030 if it strongly decreases its production levels. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that the German steel sector will meet its German climate target regardless of the production pathway selected. The findings suggest that efforts to reduce CO2 emissions in the steel industry should focus on two areas. First, alternative steelmaking processes need to be developed. Besides low-CO2 process technologies, CO2-free processes should be considered as well. Direct reduced iron could be produced based on hydrogen and then fed into an electric arc furnace powered by electricity generated using CO2-free sources. Steel could also be produced using electrolysis based on CO2-free electricity. However, because these technologies might take decades to develop and introduce, there should be a second focus on incremental CO2 reductions in the short to medium term.

Research and Development of Heat-Resistant Materials for Advanced USC Power Plants with Steam Temperatures of 700 °C and Above

Materials-development projects for advanced ultra-supercritical (A-USC) power plants with steam temperatures of 700 °C and above have been performed in order to achieve high efficiency and low CO2 emissions in Europe, the US, Japan, and recently in China and India as well. These projects involve the replacement of martensitic 9%−12% Cr steels with nickel (Ni)-base alloys for the highest temperature boiler and turbine components in order to provide sufficient creep strength at 700°C and above. To minimize the requirement for expensive Ni-base alloys, martensitic 9%−12% Cr steels can be applied to the next highest temperature components of an A-USC power plant, up to a maximum of 650°C. This paper comprehensively describes the research and development of Ni-base alloys and martensitic 9%−12% Cr steels for thick section boiler and turbine components of A-USC power plants, mainly focusing on the long-term creep-rupture strength of base metal and welded joints, strength loss in welded joints, creep-fatigue properties, and microstructure evolution during exposure at elevated temperatures.

A simulation workflow for large-scale CO2 storage in the Norwegian North Sea

Large-scale CO2 injection problems have revived the interest in simple models, like percolation and vertically-averaged models, for simulating fluid flow in reservoirs and aquifers. A series of such models have been collected and implemented together with standard reservoir simulation capabilities in a high-level scripting language as part of the open-source MATLAB Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (MRST) to give a set of simulation methods of increasing computational complexity. Herein, we outline the methods and discuss how they can be combined to create a flexible tool-chain for investigating CO2 storage on a scale that would have significant impact on European CO2 emissions. In particular, we discuss geometrical methods for identifying structural traps, percolation-type methods for identifying potential spill paths, and vertical-equilibrium methods that can efficiently simulate structural, residual, and solubility trapping in a thousand-year perspective. The utility of the overall workflow is demonstrated using real-life depth and thickness maps of two geological formations from the recent CO2 Storage Atlas of the Norwegian North Sea.

Optimal Design of Solvent Based Post Combustion CO2 Capture Processes in Quicklime Plants

cCaO-Hellas S.A., 6 th km Langada-Thessalonikis Rd., 57013,Thessaloniki, Greece seferlis@cperi.certh.gr The optimal design of a solvent based post combustion CO2 capture unit in a quicklime production plant is investigated. A 30 % weight aqueous monoethanolamine (MEA) solution is used as the absorption agent for the treatment of a 14 % mol CO2 flue gas stream. The objective function in the design optimization incorporates several equipment capacity and operating factors that have a direct impact on capital expenditure and energetic cost of the unit. A reliable and accurate equilibrium model is developed for the prediction of the process behavior. The model employs an orthogonal collocation on finite element formulation enabling structural flexibility for design purposes and efficient model reduction for computational facilitation. Nonlinear programming techniques are used for the identification of the optimal column configuration and the operating conditions. The ability of the optimally designed absorption/desorption column to achieve acceptable performance under varying separation operating conditions such as flue gas CO2 concentration, flowrate, and temperature is investigated. European policies on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction have already been adopted in order to meet the ambitious but necessary targets set for climate change prevention. Satisfaction of such targets will not only affect the global economy and specifically the energy intensive industrial sector, but also secure the competitiveness of industry in a constantly demanding market. Amongst the industrial contributors in GHG emissions, the cement and quicklime industry are significant contributors to the overall amount of released CO2. In 2008 alone, 38.5 % of the total European industrial CO2 emissions came from the cement industry, a percentage corresponding to 3.2 % of the total CO2 emitted (European Commission DG JRC, 2010). Especially in the case of the cement plants, up to 60 % of the emitted CO2 is derived from the calcination of limestone (Bosoaga et al., 2009). It is therefore evident that emissions control during the production of quicklime through the calcination step is a major contribution towards the overall reduction of CO2.

Optimizing Distributed Energy Resources and building retrofits with the strategic DER-CAModel

The pressuring need to reduce the import of fossil fuels as well as the need to dramatically reduce CO2 emissions in Europe motivated the European Commission (EC) to implement several regulations directed to building owners. Most of these regulations focus on increasing the number of energy efficient buildings, both new and retrofitted, since retrofits play an important role in energy efficiency. Overall, this initiative results from the realization that buildings will have a significant impact in fulfilling the 20/20/20-goals of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, increasing energy efficiency by 20%, and increasing the share of renewables to 20%, all by 2020.The Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) is an optimization tool used to support DER investment decisions, typically by minimizing total annual costs or CO2 emissions while providing energy services to a given building or microgrid site. This paper shows enhancements made to DER-CAM to consider building retrofit measures along with DER investment options. Specifically, building shell improvement options have been added to DER-CAM as alternative or complementary options to investments in other DER such as PV, solar thermal, combined heat and power, or energy storage. The extension of the mathematical formulation required by the new features introduced in DER-CAM is presented and the resulting model is demonstrated at an Austrian Campus building by comparing DER-CAM results with and without building shell improvement options. Strategic investment results are presented and compared to the observed investment decision at the test site. Results obtained considering building shell improvement options suggest an optimal weighted average U value of about 0.53W/(m2K) for the test site. This result is approximately 25% higher than what is currently observed in the building, suggesting that the retrofits made in 2002 were not optimal. Furthermore, the results obtained with DER-CAM illustrate the complexity of interactions between DER and passive measure options, showcasing the need for a holistic optimization approach to effectively optimize energy costs and CO2 emissions. The simultaneous optimization of building shell improvements and DER investments enables building owners to take one step further towards nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB) or nearly zero carbon emission buildings (nZCEB), and therefore support the 20/20/20 goals.

Including road transport in the EU ETS (European Emissions Trading System): A model-based analysis of the German electricity and transport sector

The EU ETS (European Emissions Trading System) is being enlarged stepwise to cover an increasing amount of overall European CO2 emissions. However, one of the largest and still growing CO2-emitting sector, the transport sector, and particularly road transport, has not yet been included in the EU ETS. Against this background, the question arises whether integrating the road transport sector in the EU ETS represents a cost-efficient CO2 reduction strategy. For this reason, the consequences of this integration are analysed with a focus on Germany. To do so we utilise a model-based approach. In order to account for both sectors simultaneously, we couple an electricity system model, PERSEUS-EU (Package for Emission Reduction Strategies in Energy Use and Supply in Europe), with a road transport model, COMIT (CO2 emission Mitigation in the Transport sector). The time horizon we consider ranges from 2010 to 2030. In our analysis, we differentiate our scenarios according to commodity prices, share of renewable energies in electricity generation and share of electric vehicles. The results show that the enlargement of the EU ETS to include road transport leads to a reduction of overall CO2 emissions, but equally reduces the mitigation efforts in the road transport sector. Simultaneously, the German electricity sector is mainly influenced according to the certificate demand or supply of the road transport sector.

Innovative and Highly Productive Joining Technologies for Multi-Material Lightweight Car Body Structures

Driven by increasing costs for energy and raw material and especially by the European CO2-emission laws, automotive industry faces the challenge to develop more lightweight and at the same time still rigid and crash-stable car bodies, that are affordable for large-scale production. The implementation of weight-reduced constructions depends not only on the availability of lightweight materials and related forming technologies, but also on cost-efficient and reliable joining technologies suitable for multi-material design. This article discusses the challenges and requirements for these technologies, based on the example of joining aluminium with press-hardened boron steels, what is considered as a very important material combination for affordable future lightweight mobility. Besides a presentation of recent developments for extending the process limits of conventional mechanical joining methods, new promising technologies such as resistance element welding are introduced. In addition, the performance, advantages, and disadvantages of the presented technologies are compared and discussed.

Changes in European greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions 1960–2010: decomposition of determining factors

This paper analyses factors that contributed to the evolution of SO2 ,N Ox and CO2 emissions in Europe from 1960 to 2010. Historical energy balances, along with population and economic growth data, are used to quantify the impacts of major determinants of changing emission levels, including energy intensity, conversion efficiency, fuel mix, and pollution control. Time series of emission levels are compared for countries in Western and Eastern Europe, throwing light on differences in the importance of particular emission- driving forces. Three quarters of the decline in SO2 emissions in Western Europe resulted from a combination of reduced energy intensity and improved fuel mix, while dedicated end- of-pipe abatement measures played a dominant role in the reduction of NOx emissions. The increase in atmospheric emissions in Eastern Europe through the mid-1990s was associated with the growth of energy-intensive industries, which off-setted the positive impact of better fuel quality and changes in fuel mix. A continuous decrease in energy intensity and higher conversion efficiencies have been the main factors responsible for the moderate rate of growth of European CO2 emissions.

Co-firing of imported wood pellets – An option to efficiently save CO2 emissions in Europe?

Abstract In this paper the energy and carbon footprints of pellet imports from Australia, West Canada, and Russia for co-firing in Europe are investigated. Their ecologic and economic performances are proven by applying the Belgian and UK co-firing subsidy systems, which require dedicated sustainability evaluations. Based on the modelling of different subsidy schemes and price scenarios, the present paper identifies favourable conditions for the use of biomass co-firing in Germany and Austria, which currently do not have dedicated co-firing incentives. The present paper shows that under present conditions, co-firing has a narrow financial gap to coal with −3 to 4 € Cent/kWh el and has low CO 2 mitigation costs compared to other renewables. Moreover, it is shown that co-firing is one of the most cost-attractive options to reach the EU-2020 targets. For policy makers, the support of co-firing is found to be very efficient in terms of cost-benefit ratio. It is proven that the co-firing subsidy schemes might direct supply chain decisions towards options with low energy and carbon impacts.

European CO2 emission trends: A decomposition analysis for water and aviation transport sectors

A decomposition analysis is used to investigate the main factors influencing the CO2 emissions of European transport activities for the period 2001–2008. The decomposition method developed by Sun [1] has been used to investigate the carbon dioxide emissions intensity, the energy intensity, the structural changes and the economy activity growth effects for the water and the aviation transport sectors. The analysis is based on Eurostat data and results are presented for 14 Member States, Norway and EU27. Results indicate that economic growth has been the main factor behind the carbon dioxide emissions increase in EU27 both for water and aviation transport activities.