Emission-intensive Industries Research Articles

Low-cost emissions cuts in container shipping: Thinking inside the box

Container shipping has become an emission-intensive industry; existing regulations, however, continue to display limitations. Technical emissions reduction measures require large, long-term investments, while operational measures may negatively impact transportation costs and supply-chain practices. For container shipping to become more sustainable, innovative, low-cost technological solutions are required. This study discusses such a technological game-changer which utilizes a lighter container type that, contrary to conventional ones, does not require wood in its floor. In this regard, emissions reductions are achieved both due to lower fuel consumption and tree savings. We estimate the global impact of this technology until 2050 using an integrated assessment model and considering different projections about future characteristics of the container fleet. Our results indicate that the adoption of the examined technology can reduce CO2 emissions by 4.7–18.8% depending on the main fuel used in container shipping lines, saving also a total of about 44 million trees.

Have Rising Environmental Costs Lead to the Withdrawal of FDI

To control the ecological environment on the verge of the red line, the Chinese government has introduced ever-increasing environmental control policies, making the environmental costs faced by economic entities in production and business activities continue to rise. Meanwhile, foreign direct investment FDI in China has also slowed down. So, is the rise in environmental costs an important driver of the slowdown in growth in recent years?This article regards the incident in 2007 that some provinces have raised the SO2 emission fee collection standard by at least one time as a quasi-natural experiment, and uses the upward adjustment of the pollution fee collection standard, an inter-regional asymmetric policy that directly reflects the increase in environmental costs, to represent environmental regulations, and the annual change in foreign capital flows to measure foreign capital transfer. Firstly, the time-varying DID model is adopted to evaluate the true impact of rising environmental costs on the withdrawal of FDI in China; then the impact mechanism, transfer mechanism and dynamic effects of the rising environmental costs on FDI are tested; finally, the policy heterogeneity test according to the pollution intensity of provinces and industries and the time dynamic effect test of foreign-invested industry layout are carried out. The study finds that:（1）The increase in the sewage fee collection standard significantly leads to the withdrawal of FDI, but this effect does not exist in the long-term.（2）The upward adjustment of pollution collection standards promotes the withdrawal of FDI by increasing RD and promotes the transfer of FDI to other provinces and abroad in the short term, and in the long run it is beneficial to FDI transfers from other provinces and foreign countries, but neither in the short-term nor in the long-term significantly affects the intra-provincial inter-industry transfer of FDI.（3）Compared with SO2 emission-non-intensive industries and provinces that are not controlled by the two control areas, the increase in the pollution fee collection standard has a greater impact on the withdrawal of FDI in SO2 emission-intensive industries and provinces in the two control areas. And it is beneficial to the greening of industrial structure in the long run. This article not only explains the reasons for the “fluid of foreign capital withdrawal”, but also further clarifies the transfer mechanism and influence mechanism through which rising environmental costs affect foreign capital and its long- and short-term effects on the layout of foreign investment industries, which has important reference value for further formulating environmental policies and stabilizing foreign investment policies.

Significance of Enhanced Oil Recovery in Carbon Dioxide Emission Reduction

Limiting the increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, and at the same time, meeting the increased energy demand can be achieved by applying carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies, which hold potential as the bridge for energy and emission-intensive industries to decarbonization goals. At the moment, the only profitable industrial large-scale carbon sequestration projects are large-scale carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) projects. This paper gives a general overview of the indirect and direct use of captured CO2 in CCUS with a special focus on worldwide large-scale CO2-EOR projects and their lifecycle emissions. On the basis of scientific papers and technical reports, data from 23 contemporary large-scale CO2-EOR projects in different project stages were aggregated, pointing out all the specificities of the projects. The specificities of individual projects, along with the lack of standardized methodologies specific for estimating the full lifecycle emissions resulting from CO2-EOR projects, pose a challenge and contribute to uncertainties and wide flexibilities when estimating emissions from CO2-EOR projects, making the cross-referencing of CO2-EOR projects and its comparison to other climate-mitigation strategies rather difficult. Pointing out the mentioned project’s differentiations and aggregating data on the basis of an overview of large-scale CO2-EOR projects gives useful information for future work on the topic of a CO2-EOR project’s lifecycle emissions.

Climate Change and Global Warming Disclosure Trends in Bangladesh: A Study on Cement and Pharmaceutical & Chemical Industry

PurposeThe core objective of the study is to critically examine the trends of the climate change & global warming discourses and their dominant characteristics in developing country perspective like Bangladesh.Design/MethodologyThis paper extends the current literature by considering reporting practices of corporation in developing country perspective. Using a sample of 30 listed companies from two major emission intensive industries, we conducted a content analysis for a span of 5 years from 2015 to 2019. A data set consisting of 19 issues of climate change and global warming information was developed through literature review.FindingsAlthough the study observes generally adapting increased disclosures over time, sample companies’ disclosures are lagging. This analysis provides the comprehension of below average climate change and global warming disclosure practices by the companies. Showed positive attitude to disclosing on climate change and global warming in terms of both number of issues disclosed and number of sample companies disclosed, only a few companies disclose rigorously in their annual reports. Compared to Bangladeshi companies, multinational companies are more inclined to comply environmental regulations and disclose more climate change and global warming issues. In particular, we improve the prior literature by focusing on voluntary climate change disclosures and by developing a content analysis to assess the extent of climate change disclosures by polluting industries in Bangladesh.

Uncertainties in macroeconomic assessments of low-carbon transition pathways - The case of the European iron and steel industry

The climate targets agreed in Paris 2015 render deep decarbonization of energy- and emission-intensive industries crucial. Policy makers are interested in the macroeconomic consequences of such decarbonization pathways and often rely on integrated modelling studies. However, the underlying modelling assumptions and uncertainties often remain unquestioned or invisible, although they may govern the models' results. For the case of a zero-process emission pathway of the European iron and steel industry, we demonstrate how different assumptions on different “layers” of uncertainty influence results. We show that effects strongly depend on technology choice, prevailing macroeconomic states as well as regional characteristics. The underlying socio-economic development and the climate policy trajectory seem to play a less important role. Particularly, we find that the choice of model, i.e. which macroeconomic theory strand it arises from, influences the sign and magnitude of macroeconomic effects and thus should be well understood in terms of appropriate interpretations by both modelers and policy makers. We emphasize that model assumptions should be transparent, results sought as to be robust across a range of possible contexts, and presented together with the conditions under which they are valid. To that end, co-design and co-production in research would support its relevance and applicability.

The Australian carbon tax: corporate perceptions, responses and motivations

PurposeThis study aims to explore how large Australian companies in emission intensive industries perceived the introduction of the Carbon Tax as an approach to carbon emissions regulation and as a tool for accountability. It also investigates the influence of perceptions of the new tax on the internal carbon emissions management practices and the motivations for such actions.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on transaction cost theory and legitimacy theory to address corporate perceptions, responses and motivations in relation to the Carbon Tax. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 senior managers directly responsible for the carbon emissions management of their companies.FindingsThe study found that the Carbon Tax, viewed by the high-emitting companies as a heavy financial burden, had a significant influence on moderating organisational legitimacy seeking behaviours. It is evident that the transaction cost issues in the form of the carbon pricing requirement has led to a change of focus to “management” rather than merely reporting to external stakeholders. This influenced companies to change their behaviour with the potential to internalise previous externalities of carbon pollution.Research limitations/implicationsThis research highlights that a pricing signal in emissions regulations is essential in conjunction with external pressures to effectively stimulate emissions management actions in companies. It extends our understanding of legitimacy theory by suggesting that a mandatory pricing mechanism as explained by transaction cost economics has the potential to lead to actual changes in corporate behaviour through a focus on management rather than reporting.Practical implicationsThe study highlights the important elements of any effective emissions policy designed to encourage strong emissions management actions from companies. Based on the findings of the study, it is evident that the Carbon Tax was a very effective mechanism in driving emission management actions, despite the general perception that any deficiencies associated with such a price mechanism could have a negative effect on the economy.Social implicationsClimate change is a critical issue for the modern society and this study discussed a short-lived policy tool in the Australian context that had the potential to change corporate behaviour in relation to carbon management.Originality/valueThis study is among the very few studies that have examined the influence of the Carbon Tax on internal emissions management practices of companies, and therefore, provides a unique dataset of corporate responses to the Carbon Tax. Given the short time frame that the Carbon Tax was in operation, the study enhances our understanding of the influence the Carbon Tax had on companies responsible for high greenhouse gas emissions.

Green supply chain coordination considering government intervention, green investment, and customer green preferences in the petroleum industry

Supply chain players in emissions-intensive industries are not likely to be motivated to make appropriate green improvements because significant investment is required for innovation and process improvement. This study aimed to analyze green supply chain coordination through which high supply chain performance can be achieved and green improvements and customer green preferences are considered. We proposed a two-part tariff (TPT) contract involving government intervention in terms of tax or subsidy. We demonstrated that the proposed TPT contract can achieve global supply chain optimization and aid in achieving green improvement. We further illustrated that the optimal green improvement degree is influenced by green technology investment, government intervention, and additional demand from customer green preferences. We showed that stronger government intervention may not always lead to higher green improvement and government should switch from taxes to subsidies in the high green investment cost scenario. Moreover, the government can benefit from low-cost green technologies. This study indicates that appropriately planned government intervention can increase the supply chain performance and aid in achieving sustainable goals.

Impact of Emissions Intensive Industries And Financial Distress On Voluntary Carbon Emission Disclosure

This study aims to examine factors affecting voluntary disclosure of carbon emissions. Factors affecting the disclosure of voluntary carbon emissions consist of emissions-intensive industries and financial distress represented by leverage. The sampling method used is pruposive sampling with the following criteria, companies that have received a corporate governance rating index during the observation period and published annual reports during the observation period (2013-2016). Based on the corporate governance index determined 66 sampled research. The analysis technique used to test the hypothesis of this research is multiple linear regression analysis. The results of this study indicate that emissions-intensive industries have a significant positive impact on the disclosure of voluntary carbon emissions. Financial distress has a significant negative impact on voluntary carbon disclosure.

An integrated approach using AHP and DEMATEL for evaluating climate change mitigation strategies of the Indian cement manufacturing industry

Concrete, a cement-based product is the highest manufactured and second highest consumed product after water on earth. Across the world, production of cement is the most energy and emission intensive industry hence, the cement industry is currently under pressure to reduce greenhouse gases emissions (GHGEs). However, reducing the GHGEs of the cement industry especially for developing country like India is not an easy task. Cement manufacturing industry needs to focus on significant climate change mitigation strategies to reduce the GHGEs to sustain its production. This study aims at identifying significant climate change mitigation strategies of the cement manufacturing industry in the context of India. Extant literature review and expert opinion are used to identify climate change mitigation strategies of the cement manufacturing industry. In the present study, a model projects by applying both AHP and DEMATEL techniques to assess the climate change mitigation strategies of the cement industry. The AHP technique help in establishing the priorities of climate change mitigation strategies, while the DEMATEL technique forms the causal relationships among them. Through AHP, the results of this research demonstrate that Fuel emission reduction is on top most priority while the relative importance priority of the main remaining factors is Process emission reduction - Electric energy-related emission - Emission avoidance and reduction - Management mitigation measures. The findings also indicate that the main factors, Process emission reduction, and Fuel emission reduction are categorized in cause group factors, while the remaining factors, Electric energy-related emission, Emission avoidance and reduction and Management mitigation measures are in effect group factors. Present model will help supply chain analysts to develop both short-term and long-term decisive measures for effectively managing and reducing GHGEs.

Allocation of Emissions Permit for China's Iron and Steel Industry in an Imperfectly Competitive Market: A Nash Equilibrium DEA Method

China is currently the world's largest producer and consumer of iron and steel. This industry is one of the most energy- and emission-intensive industries in China. It is unsuspicious that energy conservation and emission reduction in this industry are crucial for China to fulfill its obligations of reducing greenhouse gas emission and mitigating global climate change. An appropriate allocation of CO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> emissions permit is the most important precondition for establishing an efficient and effective emissions trading system that had recently been launched in China's pilot regions. This paper proposes a new emissions permit allocation method based on a Nash equilibrium data envelopment analysis model. This method is more appropriate in emissions permit allocation for China's iron and steel firms in an imperfectly competitive market where the product price is endogenous. A noncooperative game is formulated and the mixed complementarity problem is utilized to identify a Nash equilibrium in the allocation of emissions permit (AEP). The most up-to-date AEP using a unique data set of China's major iron and steel enterprises in 2014 is provided in this paper. The results show that the AEP improves the desirable output generation by satisfying the reduction targets of the undesirable outputs.

Impact and Interactions of Policies for Mitigation of Air Pollutants and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Korea.

Korea faces a challenging task of simultaneously reducing emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHG). Since both are emitted from the same sources such as fossil fuel combustion and economic activities, there could be commonalities and interactions between the policies for reducing each of them. A static computable general equilibrium model is developed to observe the economic impact of policies for reducing air pollutants or GHG and the interactions between those policies in Korea. The results show that reducing one of the air pollutants, particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) emissions by 30% from the business-as-usual (BAU) in 2022 will lead to reduction of GHG emissions by 22.8% below the BAU level, exceeding the national GHG reduction target. Also, by achieving the domestic GHG reduction target, which is 32.5% below the BAU level by 2030, PM2.5 emissions will be reduced by 32.8%. The costs of reducing air pollutants and greenhouse gas are high, reaching from 0.34% to 1.75% of gross domestic product, and the reduction causes an asymmetrical damage to emission intensive industries. The sum of the benefits from air pollutants and GHG reduction is estimated to be 0.4 to 1.2 times greater than the costs, depending on the scenario.

Carbon Management in an Emissions-Intensive Industry in a Developing Economy: Cement Manufacturing in Indonesia

Around 600 Mt carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) emission originates from energy production and consumption in Indonesia annually. Of this output, 40 Mt CO2e comes from cement production. This makes the cement industry a key sector to target in Indonesia’s quest to reduce its emissions by 26% by 2020. Substantial opportunities exist for the industry to reduce emissions, mainly through clinker substitution, alternative fuels, and the modernization of kiln technologies. However, most of these abatement options are capital intensive and considered as noncore business. Due to this, the private sector is unlikely to voluntarily invest in emission reduction unless it saves money, improves revenue, enhances the strategic position of the firm, or unless governments provide incentives or force adoption through regulatory and policy controls. In this study, we review the profile of the Indonesian cement industry and assess the carbon management and climate policy actions available to reduce emissions. The case highlights opportunities for improved carbon management in emission-intensive industries in developing countries.

Distinguishing Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions From Different Energy Intensive Industrial Sources Using OCO‐2 Observations: A Case Study in Northern China

AbstractEnergy intensive industries, such as iron and steel industry and coal‐processing industry, are one of the major anthropogenic fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emission sources, especially in China. Monitoring the localized CO2 emissions from these industrial point sources is valuable to improve emission estimates and inform on policy discussion. However, spatiotemporally explicit information on CO2 emissions from different energy intensive industrial sources is still limited. In this study, we use remote sensing data sets with high spatial resolution to detect the patterns of CO2 enhancements of carbon emission intensive industries, taking northern China as the case study area. CO2 anomalies are derived from spaceborne column‐averaged CO2 mixing ratio (XCO2) data measured by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO‐2). The Gaussian plume model is used to select the XCO2 data when the CO2 emissions from plants are localized, which allows us to distinguish CO2 emissions from different industrial point sources. We demonstrate that high‐emission areas with industrial plants are detectable by CO2 anomalies compared to natural background area and the average enhancement is about 1.8 ppm. The XCO2 data also show a higher CO2 emission from a cluster of iron and steel plants than that of coal‐processing plants, which is consistent with emission inventories. Furthermore, anthropogenic CO2 emission hotspots are possible to be identified from surrounding natural background. Our results suggest the potential of satellite data for characterizing strong localized carbon emission from different industrial sources both in space and time.

Industrial clusters with substantial carbon-reduction potential

ABSTRACTTo successfully reduce environmental emissions, companies need to expand the scope of their emissions accounting to include entire supply chains. A clustering approach has been used to find emission-intensive industry clusters. However, this approach did not include entire direct and indirect supply chains when forming high emission industry clusters. We propose a new method based on a modified normalized cut function with Leontief’s input–output model and basic clustering algorithms to find industry clusters with high levels of embodied within-cluster emissions that are well separated in the supply chain network. We use this method to identify 58 carbon-intensive clusters of Japanese industries and visualize the within-cluster supply chains in terms of embodied carbon flows. We recommend that companies collaborate within clusters to reduce environmental emissions. Our results provide new insights on where to target emissions reduction actions and technology development within industrial supply chains.

How external trade reshapes air pollutants emission profile of an urban economy: A case study of Macao

External trade has been approved to greatly affect environmental emissions by typical heterotrophic urban economies. However, the answers to questions such as how the trend of air pollutant embodied in external trade changes and what are the key influential factors need further exploration. Given that, using Macao as a case study, this paper first investigates the temporal evolution of 5 important air pollutants (i.e., SO2, PM10, NMVOC, NOX, and CO) emissions embodied in external trade based on the multi-regional input-output analysis, and then dissects the effects of key trade factors on air pollutant emissions by using the dynamic regression model. The results show that large amounts of air pollutants emissions have been avoided in Macao via increasing net imports, indicating that the direct emission reduction is achieved by transferring the emission-intensive industries to other regions. Specifically, the air pollutants emissions embodied in imports increased from 1.61E+05 t in 2000 to 2.77E+05 t in 2013. Besides, the air pollutants emissions embodied in exports increase from 1.60E+05 t in 2000 to 2.53E+05 t in 2013, dominated by gaming industry. On the other hand, the dynamic regression results reveal that there is a positive correlation between the total embodied emissions and both the growth of GDP per capita and imports, while factors such as exports growth can help decrease Macao’s air pollutants emissions. Hence, a set of relevant air-pollution abatement strategies from both the local and global perspectives are proposed in this study.

Growth of industrial CO2 emissions in Shanghai city: Evidence from a dynamic vector autoregression analysis

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the main sources of global warming, rising sea levels, and frequent outbreaks of extreme weather. China is now one of the largest energy consumer and CO2 emitters in the world. As one of China's economic centers, Shanghai city has a perfect industrial system with large industrial scale. The industrial sector is an energy– and emission–intensive industry, which contributes the significant part of CO2 emissions in Shanghai city. Therefore, an in–depth investigation of the main driving forces of CO2 emissions in the industrial sector is essential to reduce CO2 emissions in the city. This study uses Vector Autoregressive model to analyze the main factors causing the increase in CO2 emissions in the industrial sector. The results show that economic growth leads to an increase in CO2 emissions in the short run, but is conducive to reducing CO2 emissions in the long run, due to the differences in fixed–asset investment and export trade. Energy consumption structure leads to a growing CO2 emissions in the short term, and is beneficial to mitigate CO2 emissions in the long term, owing to the gradual optimization of energy consumption structure. However, urbanization helps to reduce CO2 emissions in the short term, but leads to an increase in CO2 emissions in the long term, because of urban real estate and infrastructure construction investments as well as vehicle use. Energy efficiency leads to an increase in CO2 emissions both in the short and long run since the scale effect exceeds the technical effect. Industrial structure produces a positive effect in the short run, but the impact is gradually narrowing in the long run.

Linking the Effect of Reservoir Injectivity and CO2 Transport Logistics in the Nordic Region

We compare the cost for CO2-transport by ship with cost for pipeline transport in the Nordic region as a function of transport volume and distance. We also calculate the pipeline volumetric break-even point yielding the minimum CO2 volume required from a specific site for pipeline to become the less costly transport option and finally, we investigate the effect injectivity may have on the choice of reservoir and transport mode. Most stationary CO2-emissions in the Nordic region originate from emission intensive industries such as steel, cement and chemical plants and refineries. Typically, their emissions are modest (less than 1 Mt per year) compared to large coal fired power plants, while distances to potential storage sites are considerable, often 300km or more. Hence, build-up of clusters of emission sources and CO2-volumes is likely to take time and be costly. At the same time, many of the emission sources, both fossil based and biogenic, are located along the coast line. The results imply that due to modest CO2-volumes and relatively long transport distances CO2 transport by ship is the least costly transportation option for most of the sources individually as well as for most of the potential cluster combinations during ramp-up of the CCS transport and storage infrastructure. It is furthermore shown that cost of ship transport increases modestly with increasing transport distance which, in combination with poor injectivity in reservoirs in the Baltic Sea, indicate that it may be less costly to transport the CO2 captured from Finnish and Swedish sources located along the Baltic Sea a further 800-1300km to the west by ship for storage in aquifers with higher injectivity in the Skagerrak region or in the North Sea.

Energy Consumption and GHG Emission for Regional Aluminum Industry: A Case Study of Henan Province, China

Aluminum industry is a typical energy-intensive and emission-intensive industry. Henan's aluminum output occupies the first for many years until 2013 in the whole country. We analyzed 18 applicable to aluminum smelting process and 8 energy-efficiency technologies to alumina production process. The Conservation Supply Curve (CSC) is used in this paper. It is an analytical tool which selects the economically feasible technologies. Three scenarios are simulated. Under the BAU, S1 and S2 scenario, the energy consumption of the aluminum industry will decrease by 19%, 25%, and 29% compared to 2014 level respectively. The emission mitigation of GHG in S1 and S2 scenario are 3.2 Mt CO2e and 5.4 Mt CO2e, compared to BAU scenario in 2030. In addition, sensitivity analysis is conducted. Finally, some policy implications are proposed.

Assessing the EU ETS with a bottom-up, multi-sector model

ABSTRACTThe European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the central pillar of the EU response against climate change. This trading mechanism is considered, from the theoretical point of view, as the most cost-effective method to reduce GHG. However, previous studies show that the agents who participate in these markets may behave in a way that may lead to inefficient CO2 prices, creating doubts about the static and dynamic efficiency of the system. This article analyses these possible anomalies by first trying to model the ETS in a more realistic way, addressing some of the limitations of previous models, and second, by comparing the results with real market transactions. For this, a bottom-up, multi-sector model has been built, which represents the EU ETS in an integrated, cross-sectoral way, paying particular attention to the interactions among the most emissions intensive industries. The results show the benefits of this modelling approach and how it better reflects real market conditions. Some preliminary conclusions regarding the behaviour of the agents in the ETS market are also presented.POLICY RELEVANCELow allowance prices in the EU ETS have put into question the dynamic efficiency of the EU ETS system, prompting various ideas for structural reform. However, determining the right reform also requires estimating correctly how agents will respond to it. This article proposes a tool to realistically simulate the EU ETS under the assumption of rational agents, and compare it to real market outcomes, in order to understand better the behaviour of agents in this carbon market, and therefore how to design better policies.

Community participation and sustainable investment in city projects: The Berlin Water Consumer Stock Ownership Plan

Water supply issues and sustainable urban development are inextricably linked in cities across the world and are becoming even more urgent given the everincreasing scale and nature of demand. As with many large cities across the world, Berlin is situated along a river, the Spree. What regularly causes massive fish death is not emission-intensive industries or citizens illegally disposing of waste. During heavy rainfall as the sewers threaten to become overburdened, the combined sewage system discharges its contents directly into the river to prevent an overflow into the streets. This problem is common to countless metropolitan regions. The measures implemented by the city of Berlin to date — underground concrete basins as buffers and an intelligent canal control system — remain insufficient to capture the 3–4 million cubic metres of untreated wastewater still discharged into the river each year. LURITEC, a new system of pre-manufactured, modular synthetic glass fibre tubes that are placed in the river instead of underground, can make a cost-efficient contribution towards closing this gap. The system is complementary to traditional concrete tanks. Two major obstacles have so far hindered implementation of the €60m LURITEC pilot project: first, a lack of financing; and secondly, a lack of political support. Here, citizens’ financial participation can lower public costs while providing a grassroots democratic backbone. A Consumer Stock Ownership Plan (CSOP) offers low-risk loan financing of a significant share of the project while requiring only a small financial contribution from the CSOP participants. Combining different revenue sources, the redemption period for repaying the €12.4m debt is 8.5 years. Community participation, in particular citizen capital participation as proposed in this article, anchors the citywide project in the citizenry, thus strengthening its democratic legitimacy and facilitating sustainable urban development.