A Paris aligned 1.5 °C mitigation pathway for the chemical industry based on 100% renewable energy and novel production technologies

Abstract

Abstract With renewables growing at an unprecedented pace and critical carbon budget deadlines approaching, research is shifting to the new frontier of Paris aligned 1.5 °C mitigation pathways for hard-to-abate sectors, including the chemical industry sector. This is a significant challenge with chemical products such as plastics, fertilizers and many more products intertwined with today’s society and with CO2 emissions originating both from energy and from chemical conversions. This paper presents a detailed bottom-up production-based energy and emission calculation to make a 1.5 °C compatible scenario for the chemical industry based on three main measures compared to a business-as-usual scenario. This research found that the holistic combination of demand and supply measures is critical to reduce the different types of emissions in the sector (energy and non-energy process emissions). An overall reduction of 82% of CO2 emissions in 2050 is calculated with a decrease in base chemical production growth (− 21%), 100% renewable energy for heat and electricity (− 50%) and the introduction of novel electrical-based and biomass-based production technologies for ethylene, propylene, methanol and ammonia (− 10%). Critical system developments include slowing chemical demand growth with recycling and circularity best practices, advanced electrification of heat supply and the substantial market penetration of the current most advanced sustainable production technologies for methanol, ammonia, and ethylene based on their reasonable technology maturation trajectories. Here, green methanol and ammonia will require 381 TWh in 2030 and 3232 TWh in 2050 for green hydrogen electrolysis, which will represent 1% and 4% of global electricity demand.

Keywords

• Chemical industry
• Green chemicals
• 1.5 °C pathways
• Circularity
• Carbon budget
• 100% renewables