Climate change mitigation through CDM : bioenergy technology and energy efficiency in the steel industry

Abstract: Climate change is one of the most significant challenges to sustainable development facing the international community. Increased attention has been given by industries and governments from both industrialized and developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the clean development mechanism (CDM), one of the Kyoto Protocol's (KP) flexible mechanisms. China is the biggest developing country in the world. The energy demands in China are increasing quickly with its rapid economic growth. However, low energy efficiency and coal-dominated energy make China the world's second largest CO2 emitter behind the United States. Sweden, an industrialized country with high-energy efficiency and a good renewable energy system, shows its leadership in international cooperation and competence on the climate change issues. Sweden has already declared its desire to contribute to making KP's CDM work and become an effective instrument in the work on international climate change mitigation. It is of great interest to investigate the possibilities and the potential of GHG emission reduction through CDM. The objective of the work, considering the mitigating greenhouse gases in a global perspective, is to study how to introduce CDM with technology transfer between Sweden and China. This study provides illustrative examples of opportunities and benefits as well as revealing the problems associated with this mechanism. Two research areas, i.e. bioenergy technology and energy efficiency in the steel industry, are studied in this thesis. Regarding bioenergy technology, with consideration of technology status and biomass resource differences between Sweden and China, this study explores the potential and benefits of implementing Swedish advanced bioenergy technologies in China. A case study further shows that it is possible to produce and utilize wood pellets in China by using Swedish technology under CDM. As for the energy efficiency in the steel industry, an optimization model was developed to simulate CO2 emissions. The modeling results show that CO2 could be reduced at a low cost by implementing CDM projects between Swedish and Chinese steel plants.