China鈥檚 path to a decarbonized economy is complicated by its abundance of hard-to-abate industries like the production of iron, steel, and cement. But new research finds that clean hydrogen could break the bottleneck.
Thirty-one percent of Chinese emissions come from heavy industry, significantly higher than the global average of 23%. This will make it challenging for the country to meet its pledges to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Simply instituting energy-efficient technology won鈥檛 be enough, says Xi Yang, a research associate with Harvard Univ.鈥檚 Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy, and Environment. For instance, improving energy efficiency in the cement sector might only reduce the sector鈥檚 emissions by 8%. New technology will be needed, Yang says.
Yang and her colleagues modeled scenarios for China to reach its decarbonization goals, focusing especially on 鈥渉ard-to-abate鈥� sectors, which include the heavy industry and heavy transport that will be difficult to electrify, as well as chemical processes that use fossil fuels as feedstock. Using a modeling framework called China-MAPLE (Multi-Abatement Planning and Long-term Energy system optimization in China), they...
Would you like to access the complete CEP News Update?
No problem. You just have to complete the following steps.
You have completed 0 of 2 steps.
-
Log in
You must be logged in to view this content. Log in now.
-
AIChE Membership
You must be an AIChE member to view this article. Join now.
Copyright Permissions
Would you like to reuse content from CEP Magazine? It鈥檚 easy to request permission to reuse content. Simply to connect instantly to licensing services, where you can choose from a list of options regarding how you would like to reuse the desired content and complete the transaction.