Carbon emissions and low-carbon development in Olefin industry

Abstract

Olefin industry as a vital part in economic development is facing a problem of high CO₂ emission. In this work, for the global and China's olefin industry under different development scenario, the carbon emission is predicted after the revealing of carbon footprint in different olefin routes. The results show that the carbon footprint of the natural gas liquids (NGLs)-derived route is highly lower than that of the oil- and coal-derived routes. The carbon emission from the global olefin industry in 2015 is 553 million ton CO₂ (MtCO₂). In 2030, it will be ranged between 739 and 924 MtCO₂ under different scenarios. Under sustainable development scenario, 15% reduction space is existed, whereas 6% growth is observed under the hybrid-development scenario compared to the business-as-usual situation. In the case of China, its carbon emission is 120 MtCO₂ in 2015. Its potential carbon emission in 2030 will increase to 264-925 MtCO₂, depending on the rest new capacity from low-carbon or high-carbon routes. The large gap implies the significant influence of the development route choice. However, if most new capacity is from the existed planned olefin projects, the carbon emission will be ranged between 390 and 594 MtCO₂. Finally, the low-carbon roadmaps as well as polices are proposed for sustainable development of olefin industry.

Keywords: Carbon emission; Lifecycle carbon footprint; Low-carbon development; Olefin industry.