Possibilities of CO2 emission reduction process integration analysis and carbon trading schemes

Abstract: Climate change is one of the greatest challenges faced by today's society. With more evidence from scientists, the need to manage greenhouse gas emissions has been increasing in response to international climate change negotiations. With the aid of the Kyoto Protocol's entry into force in February 2005, more efforts on greenhouse gas emission reduction can be expected from nations. In this thesis, possibilities of reducing carbon dioxide emission in Sweden have been analysed: via the internal abatement from domestic efforts; and through international collaboration with the aid of carbon trading schemes. For the former, the Swedish steel industry was chosen and the Process Integration (PI) method was applied to analyse possibilities of CO2 emission reduction. For the latter, case studies were performed to demonstrate CO2 emission reduction by using Kyoto market mechanisms and EU ETS. A process integration method was developed and used to analyse CO2 emission for the steel industry with consideration of the material and energy system. This model was initially designed based on a specific steel plant. However, the model can be used to analyse other steel plants with different processes, either for the whole steel process system or some sub-systems. The modelling work on optimising residue material flows and ferrous burden materials use for the BF-BOF system was focused on analysing CO2 emission reduction. The model covering the carbon trading systems shows that internal changes and the Kyoto CDM mechanism will both contribute to help steel plants to meet their emission allowance and future reduction commitments. The carbon trading schemes will play a critical part in future efforts against climate change since they can offer lower cost. CDM is the only operative Kyoto mechanism at the moment, and it will probably be the largest carbon trading market. In addition, it is the only mechanism through which the developing countries have been involved in the climate change mitigation arena. The Swedish government has already declared its desire to contribute to making CDM work and become an effective instrument in work on the international climate. Sweden will keep a leading position in the bioenergy technology field by implementing more CDM projects and will also gain more experience of international collaboration related to the CDM. The calculated potential reduction of CO2 emission by using Swedish bioenergy technologies can be used as a guideline to develop CDM projects in developing countries. Two case studies of bioenergy CDM projects demonstrate how Sweden can reduce CO2 emission via CDM. In summary, it is possible to reduce the industrial CO2 emissions at lower cost through carbon trading schemes. However, it is important to preserve the competitiveness of industry. Therefore, domestic actions/internal abatement should be encouraged since they can further improve the efficiency and promote the discovery of new technologies for creating a more sustainable energy supply both from an economic and an environmental point of view.