Name: ‘Super-Pollutant’ Emitted by 11 Chinese Chemical Plants Could Equal a Climate Catastrophe - Inside Climate News
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‘Super-Pollutant’ Emitted by 11 Chinese Chemical Plants Could Equal a Climate Catastrophe - Inside Climate News

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The plant’s abatement technology produced a financial windfall. Shenma, and another, larger, state-owned adipic acid plant that also reduced its emissions, sold carbon credits over a five-year period that were worth as much as $1.3 billion, records from the U.N. and carbon markets show.&nbsp;Then, in 2012, funding for the U.N. program dried up.What has happened since at the two plants, and at nine others across China that now manufacture nearly half of the world’s adipic acid, has been a mystery.&nbsp;2O) emissions, but he would not say to what extent.2O emissions from other sources. Plant operators and government officials in China are hesitant to talk at this critical moment, when China is finalizing a wide ranging plan for economic development and emission reduction targets that will guide the country for the next five years.&nbsp;Starting in the early ‘90s, DuPont, then the largest nylon producer in the world, led to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from adipic acid plants after the company became aware of the pollutant’s outsized impact on the climate.&nbsp;&nbsp;N2O emissions from its one remaining U.S. plant.&nbsp;​2O wouldn’t break down until it reached higher temperatures, at which point more of the gas would decompose into NO, a pollutant that causes ozone depletion and can lead to the formation of acid rain.quick studies.N2O emissions, which will help protect the global environment,” the announcement said. “At the same time, we will also get economic benefits from selling carbon emission reduction credits to developed countries through the CDM. Implementing this project not only will improve the local environment, but it also has great significance for mitigating global warming.”&nbsp;282,269 tons of nitrous oxide from being emitted into the atmosphere over a five-year period, according to CDM records. That is equal to the greenhouse gas emissions of four coal-fired power plants over the same time period, according to the U.S. EPA’s.&nbsp;, according to a 2010 report by the Stockholm Environment Institute.a secondary market where CDM carbon credits were traded.that was deducted on CDM funds imposed on the two companies by the Chinese government. The tax helped pay for a established by China that reinvested the money in other clean energy or emissions reductions projects.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“I thought it was obviously such a good thing to do,” he said.&nbsp;&nbsp;of carbon dioxide in 2006 as it built a fleet of new coal-fired power plants at an astonishing rate of one every .&nbsp;&nbsp;The 2010 Stockholm Environment Institute report that concluded adipic acid abatement projects would pay for themselves in just 19 days suggested the high value of CDM credits may have distorted the global adipic acid market.&nbsp;&nbsp;After the Stockholm Environment Institute report was published, the European Union, the largest buyer of CDM credits, announced it would stop buying nitrous oxide and other industrial gas credits beginning in 2013 because of market distortions caused by the program.&nbsp;stated.&nbsp;fueling a flood of additional abatement projects in developing countries just as the world’s wealthier countries were scaling back on purchases of additional credits. The end result was an oversupply of carbon credits that outstripped demand. The price of CDM credits fell through the floor, dropping from approximately $15 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent at the start of 2011 to less than $1 per ton by the end of 2012.co-authored by a member of Liaoyang’s internal research institute noted that the company’s nitrous oxide abatement reactor is “currently the largest greenhouse gas emission reduction device in China.” What’s not clear, however, is if the device is actually still operating.&nbsp;n extensive search of Chinese language news sites after the CDM period, however, yielded no articles describing continued regular use of the abatement technology.in Germany concluded that the Shenma and Liaoyang plants faced “a high risk of stopping GHG [greenhouse gas] abatement.” The companies had no financial incentive to abate after the value of CDM credits plummeted and there were no government regulations requiring abatement, the report noted.&nbsp;&nbsp;2O emissions,” the report concluded.If a country puts regulations in place or other incentive schemes, the abatement projects may continue, said Lambert Schneider, the lead author of the report and a member of the Clean Development Mechanism’s executive board. But Shenma and Liaoyang’s abatement reactors face annual costs and generate no revenue, he said, and from a purely economic standpoint, it made no sense for Shenma and Liaoyang to continue abating.&nbsp;2O gas won’t be eliminated through decomposition,” the book said. “Rather it will be directly emitted into the atmosphere.”he lead author of the chapter on adipic acid and official with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment who could not be reached for comment, laid out two possible emissions reduction scenarios that China could implement moving forward.2O emissions reduction projects in the future, including returning a portion of the CDM fund to support companies of a certain scale to reduce their emissions, or providing certain subsidies for their electricity costs or energy consumption.”from 2013 to 2017, the most recent years available, shows no mention of funds being allocated to the Shenma or Liaoyang plants, though the reports do not provide a comprehensive accounting of all projects that were funded.&nbsp;2 greenhouse gases for the ministry under the Clean Development Mechanism told InsideClimate News that, according to his understanding, the government did not subsidize abatement at the plants after their participation in the Clean Development Mechanism ended, while noting that he was not very involved in overseeing N2O emissions reduction specifically and therefore his knowledge is limited.&nbsp;&nbsp;published by China’s National Development and Reform Commission in 2013 did, however, direct all adipic acid manufacturers to report the volume of their N2O emissions to the government.&nbsp;did not respond to an InsideClimate request for the emissions data. A 2016 government directive called for nitrous oxide emissions from adipic acid production and other industrial sources to peak by 2020. However, it remains unclear if the policy will be enforced.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;128,907,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, or the annual emissions of 27.8 million cars.Interviews with company representatives suggest that as many as six of China’s 11 adipic acid plants, including the Shenma and Liaoyang plants, use chemical catalysts or other means, including capturing and selling their nitrous oxide emissions to electronics manufacturers, to reduce at least a portion of what they emit into the atmosphere.&nbsp;&nbsp;2O emissions. Information on three of the six plants that said they abated came second hand, provided by an industry insider after company representatives refused to talk. A company representative at one of the 11 plants said the factory did not use any abatement technology, nor did any of the other plants.by Beijing University of Chemical Technology describes a lower cost, domestic catalyst. The catalyst was successfully tested at Shenma’s plant, according to published in Industrial Catalysis, an academic journal run by the Northwest Research Institute of Chemical Industry, a government research center in Shaanxi province.&nbsp;&nbsp;2O emissions are not strictly controlled at present,” the study stated.If Shenma has been using a new, domestic catalyst in its CDM-era reactor, the company still couldn’t be abating all of its emissions. Since Shenma’s Clean Development Mechanism project began in 2007, Shenma’s adipic acid production capacity has grown nearly ten-fold, with a third of total production occurring at a second, nearby location. It is now the third largest adipic acid producer in China. The reactor installed by Invista would be capable of abating only slightly more than half of the company’s total nitrous oxide emissions, Perilloux said.&nbsp;&nbsp;2O is the “laughing gas” long used by dentists—and as a propellant in foods such as whipped cream.&nbsp;in China in recent years. But the market for all uses of N2O is limited and represents only a small fraction of the N2O produced as a byproduct of manufacturing adipic acid.&nbsp;by the city of Pingdingshan, show that an outside company began capturing a small fraction of Shenma’s nitrous oxide emissions in 2017. Another company broke ground on a second, larger facility in the fall of 2019. Combined, the two facilities will be able to capture as much as 21,000 tons of nitrous oxide per year, according to publicly available records. This is approximately 16 percent of Shenma’s total emissions, based on total production capacity., but did not mention any ongoing abatement using catalysts and chemical reactors.&nbsp;,” is a high-level country summary that provides a single figure for nitrous oxide emissions from across China’s chemical sector in 2014—311,000 tons, the most recent official statistic available. This has a carbon dioxide equivalent of 92,678,000 tons and aligns with the projections in the 2014 book by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection that assumed no nitrous oxide abatement from adipic acid manufacturing.&nbsp;&nbsp;Wilfried Winiwarter, a senior research scholar on greenhouse gases with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, based in Laxenburg, Austria.The first possibility is that Chinese officials may have simply calculated nitrous oxide emissions based on adipic acid production volumes rather than checking with plant operators to see if they abate any of their emissions, Winiwarter said.&nbsp;&nbsp;these emissions really happen,” Winiwarter said.institute developed a widely used emissions model, the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies model, which assumes that 40 percent of adipic acid plants in China abate nitrous oxide. Another prominent emissions inventory, the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research, assumes nearly all nitrous oxide emissions from China’s adipic acid plants are abated.“Adipic acid production and related N2O emissions are a topic worth investigating,” he said. “However, I am a scientist and not a detective. I will not be able to provide ultimate solutions to the issue.”that it would ensure nitrous oxide emissions from adipic acid production would reach its peak by 2020.&nbsp; However, a , a think tank based in Washington, D.C., projects that if nitrous oxide emissions from adipic acid plants in China continue on their current trajectory, an estimate that assumes none of the emissions are abated, they will increase by more than 60 percent in the next decade.“Adipic acid production is highly concentrated and relatively easy to regulate,” the report states.&nbsp; “China can reach a 100 percent installation rate for mitigation systems in adipic acid production by 2030.”of carbon dioxide emissions eliminated by the renewable energy sources. Retrofitting existing coal plants with carbon capture and storage technology would cost more than $80 per metric ton. &nbsp;While costs for nitrous oxide abatement are low, they are not insignificant. Shenma’s reactor cost $10 million and had $1.1 million in annual operating and maintenance costs, according to the CDM.&nbsp;The buildout created overcapacity that severely limited the profitability of adipic acid production.&nbsp;have called the five-year plan “one of the most important documents on the planet” for global sustainability.&nbsp;preparing to release its next round of commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement, including, perhaps, how to tackle “non-CO2” emissions such as nitrous oxide. China’s current Paris commitment and five-year plan focus on carbon dioxide emissions reductions.2 greenhouse gases; pollutants like methane, hydrofluorocarbons, highly potent greenhouse gases used in refrigeration and air conditioning, and nitrous oxide.CO2 emissions were a country, they would be the 7th largest emitter of total GHGs [greenhouse gases] in the world,” Song wrote in last September.&nbsp;Reducing non-CO2 emissions “offers a range of low cost, feasible technologies that should be deployed,” Song told InsideClimate News. “We think non-CO2 emissions reductions are a good opportunity for China to demonstrate momentum” on climate change.&nbsp;“unconscionable.”N2O is so cheap, we’d certainly think it is something you ought to do because it just doesn’t cost you much,” Perilloux said. “It was cheap as compared to the negative publicity you might get if you didn’t do anything.”is an InsideClimate News staff writer. is an InsideClimate News fellow covering China.&nbsp;Katrina Northrop is a staff writer at&nbsp;The Wire China&nbsp;covering China’s impact on trade, business, labor, and the environment. Her work has been published in&nbsp;The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Providence Journal,&nbsp;and&nbsp;SupChina.Top Photo Credit:&nbsp;Yang Qing/Xinhua via Getty ImagesICN provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going.Inside Climate News uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept this policy.Accept

The plant’s abatement technology produced a financial windfall. Shenma, and another, larger, state-owned adipic acid plant that also reduced its emissions, sold carbon credits over a five-year period that were worth as much as $1.3 billion, records from the U.N. and carbon markets show.&nbsp;Then, in 2012, funding for the U.N. program dried up.What has happened since at the two plants, and at nine others across China that now manufacture nearly half of the world’s adipic acid, has been a mystery.&nbsp;2O) emissions, but he would not say to what extent.2O emissions from other sources. Plant...

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‘Super-Pollutant’ Emitted by 11 Chinese Chemical Plants Could Equal a Climate Catastrophe - Inside Climate News

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