Symposium on Green Growth, Climate Change and CCUS

发布日期:2019-03-22 11:24    来源:

Large parts of the industrial sector, and steel-making in particular, is both CO2 and energy intensive, especially in countries and regions with industrial power and rapid economic development. In light of the sustainable development goals of the United Nations, and international commitments made by the vast majority of nations, green growth and development in the industrial sector will play an important role in leading the economic and social transformation of society.

The Symposium on Climate Change, Green Growth and CCUS was held on November 20-21, 2018 at Peking University, organized by Peking University Public Policy Forum International which is an international platform of exchanging ideas about global public policy issues including addressing climate change for green growth and sustainable development. 

The Symposium invited government officials, industry experts, the finance community and institutional scholars globally, to share knowledge and ideas with a focus on large-scale emissions reduction in the industrial sector, and particularly the role of Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS).

Co-chaired by Prof. FU Jun, National School of Development at Peking University and Dr. Graham Winkelman, BHP's Practice Lead Climate Change, the symposium had gone through four sequential sessions, and more than a hundred participants attended the event.

  1. Opening Speeches

Mr SUN Zhen, Deputy Director General for Climate, Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), Ms Elizabeth Peak, Australian Economics Minister Counsellor to China, and Mr Neal Carlin, head of climate change and environment of British Embassy Beijing, spoke at the opening session. Mr. SUN Zhen pointed out that we should pay more attention on the potential of cost reduction in addition to focusing on the current technical cost of CCUS. Ms. Elizabeth Peak deeply appreciated how much has been achieved in advancing CCUS with commendation to BHP for its supporting on low emissions technology. And Mr. Neal Carlin emphasized that CCUS is a potential technology to decarbonize the economy and maximize global economic opportunities.

  1. Climate Change and Green Growth

Mr Chi Jingdong, Vice chairman of China Iron and Steel Association gave a keynote speech on China’s iron/steel industry and its sustainable development. He shared China’s achievements in energy saving and environmental protection in iron/steel sector. He expressed that low carbon development is the core of transition and upgrading of China’s iron/steel industry.

Ms. Fiona Wild, Vice President for Environment and Climate Change of BHP attached great necessity to the efforts reducing climate risks and promoting sustainable development and she believes that the world must pursue the twin objectives of limiting climate change in line with current international agreements while providing access to affordable energy, and implement in a way that achieves lowest cost emissions reductions – both are essential to sustainable development. BHP is among sector leaders in setting an absolute target to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Prof. Teng Fei from Tsinghua University presented IPCC’s 1.5 degree C report: a call to action. An average of 1 °C global warming already happened, we are consuming remaining carbon budget rapidly, the mitigation cost is much higher and full of uncertainty, and the knowledge gaps remain and political consensus is not strong enough to move towards 1.5 °C as global goals he said.

Mr. Li Junfeng, former Director General of National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, talked on China's Mid-Long-Term Low-Carbon Transformation. As the world's second largest economy and the biggest greenhouse gas emission entity, China faces great pressure form emission reduction and low-carbon development is not just a transformation of development mode, but also a policy arrangement for a new order in international development.

Dr. Zhai Yongping, Chief Energy Sector of Asia Development Bank shared with participants the evolving trends in energy sector with the topic of Addressing Climate and Energy Challenges through Innovations - Asian Development Bank Approach, and he stressed that Innovative technologies, business models and financing instruments were all very crucial in the evaluation process of ADB, which should also be paid special attention to in the development of new energies and CCUS.

  1. Carbon Capture, Use and Storage (CCUS)

Starting with Dr.Graham Winkelman's presentation, the symposium moved forward to its CCUS session. Dr. Winkelman is BHP’s Practice Lead Climate Change, his presentation focused on policy response to climate change, policy fundamentals, and tailored policy support. He concluded that CCUS advocates have a renewed sense of momentum in the US and a new integrated CCUS project could be viable at coal-fired power plants.

Michael Monea, President of International CCS Knowledge, shared the application of CCS technology in Canada with large scale deployment -- Boundary Dam as a case, which allowed for long-term production of over 110 MW of clean and base-load electricity in a fully integrated and full chain process. He introduced that a next plant with CCS technology can be up to 30% cheaper, as per the feasibility study of Saskpower Shand Power Station.

Alex Zapantis GM – Asia Pacific, Global CCS Institute, explained Industrial CCS. He elaborated the Industrial processes cannot be switched out of global economy, demand for industrial products grows under all climate mitigation scenarios and CCS will be essential for Chinese industry. An ideal way he proposed is by setting up CCS hubs and clusters to catch and store carbon produced.

The presentation on the long-term viability of carbon sequestration in deep-sea sediments was from Prof. Zhang Dongxiao, dean of College of Engineering at Peking University. Prof. Zhang introduced mainstream development models and methods on carbon sequestration in deep-sea sediments and illustrated the cutting-edge researches and technologies on carbon sequestration as well as the cases successfully adopted the carbon sequestration.

Mr. Andrew Purvis, Director Safety, Health and Environment of World Steel Association, concluded in his presentation that steel is a CO2 and energy intensive, but highly competitive industry that enables CO2 mitigation in other sectors. Inequities introduced by carbon pricing mechanisms could jeopardize fair competition.

Mr. Li Xinchuang, the President of China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, discussed about the low carbon in iron/steel industry in China. He said that the cost of CCUS technology is about 20% of that steel production, the achievement could be more notable should the cost be lowered.

On the corporation level, CCUS technology was also of great potential. Chief Scientist of Baosteel Research Institute, Prof. Zhang Yongjie, shared the research and application progress on energy saving and sensible-heat recovering in Baosteel Group.

International experience on the mitigation of emissions was also referable for domestic steel corporations. This year’s symposium greeted Mr. Hiroyuku Tezuka, Chairman of Energy Technology Committee at Japan Iron and Steel Federation to share Japanese experience of carbon emission reduction. As the second largest steel-making country in the world, Japan is making a profit in the export of its energy saving technologies and experiences to the rest of the world.

The symposium also invited Mr. Zhi Xiao, Director of Science and Technology Management, China National Building Material Group, to talk about China Building Materials Industry on the Way to a Low Carbon Future. Progresses have also been made in the post-combustion carbon technology and CCU technology, in which China was determined to put more efforts in the coming years.

  1. CCUS Project Report

In 2016, BHP sponsored and funded a research project, led by Peking University together with the University of Edinburgh and other research institutes to assess technology, business, economics and polies viability -- regarding CCUS deployment in the iron and steel sector. In this context, the Symposium also serves as a vehicle for the project team to share the outcomes of two years of collaborative work. The project advisory board members listened to the reports and gave comments and expectations for the future work.

The Project Report started from the introduction of technical progresses achieved by the team from College of Engineering at Peking University. They shared their research frontier regard to the development of functional porous material of CO2 capture and separation, carboxylation process of CO2, and biological fixation of CO2.

Business application of advanced CCUS technology were also crucial. The team members from Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, North China Electric Power University, University of Edinburgh, and UK-China Guangdong CCUS center presented how new CCUS technologies could be applied in the factories, how to further abate its cost, and how the innovative method further finance and support the development of CCS in Iron and Steel sector.

Regarding the policy/economic issues, the team from National School of Development at Peking University (NSD) introduced the economic pattern for past 2 decades and presented the impacts of economic slowdown and Paris commitment on heavy industry, and the team from China Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC) talked about Policy analysis for CCUS development in steel sector.

In the comment session, members of the esteemed advisory board and their representatives, including Prof. Fei Weiyang – an academician of Tsinghua University, Prof. Yang Yongping - President of the North China Electric Power University, Prof. Han Wenke – former Director General of NDRC’s Energy Research Institute, Mr. Zheng Yiyu – Vice President of Baosteel Research Institute, and Ms. CHEN Liyun -- Director of Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection at China Iron & Steel Association, shared their ideas and thoughts with speakers and audience. They highly praised the presentations, noticing the importance of putting theoretical and experimental progresses into application by piloting these innovative technologies more.

After the comment session, Professor Fu Jun closed the discussion of the symposium with a retrospection of the whole forum. He mentioned the characteristics of steelmaking and metallurgy factories in China, with the market largely dominated by state-owned corporations. Therefore, policy orientation from the government had a greater influence on the application and piloting of CCUS technology.