The speech brought China into a new era
In September 2020, China clearly stated at the United Nations General Assembly that its carbon dioxide emissions should peak before 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 and. At this year’s National Two Sessions, “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality” were written into the government work report for the first time. On the afternoon of March 15th, General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over the Ninth Meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Committee, and emphasized again that carbon peaking and carbon neutrality should be included in the overall layout of ecological civilization construction, and efforts should be made to grasp the iron marks and realize the 2030 goal as scheduled. The goal of carbon neutrality before 2060.
The industry will face drastic changes
In order to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, all walks of life need to undergo profound changes, and the adipic acid industry is of course no exception. At present, the production of adipic acid in my country is dominated by the cyclohexanol method and the KA oil method. The “three wastes” produced by the cyclohexanol method are relatively small, but no matter which production method needs to be oxidized with nitric acid, the process will Produce a large amount of N2O (nitrogen monoxide, commonly known as laughing gas). N2O is one of the six major greenhouse gases, which has a strong greenhouse effect, and its greenhouse effect potential value is about 310 times that of CO2!
On July 24, at the 2021 Beijing Summit of the Global Wealth Management Forum with the theme of “Global Green Recovery and ESG Investment Opportunities”, Xie Zhenhua, China’s special envoy for climate change affairs, made more updates on my country’s dual carbon goals To explain in detail: the peak of carbon dioxide in 2030 is the peak of carbon dioxide, and carbon neutrality must be achieved before 2060, including the emission of greenhouse gases in the entire economy, including from carbon dioxide to all greenhouse gases. This shows that N2O is also included in my country’s carbon neutrality goal, which will put forward higher requirements for tail gas treatment in the production process of adipic acid, and even cause changes in production technology.
China: Big Market, Big Potential
my country is a big country of adipic acid, and its production capacity of adipic acid accounts for about 60% of the world, and it will further increase in the future.
Huge production capacity has brought about my country’s absolute advantage in adipic acid production, but at the same time it has produced a larger N2O emission than other countries. According to the research of Rate Jie Consulting, the production of 1 ton of adipic acid will produce about 0.3 tons of N2O. According to the production of about 1.4 million tons of adipic acid in my country in recent years, it is estimated that about 400,000 tons of N2O will be produced every year, and its global warming potential Potentially equal to 120 million tons of CO2!
According to the current national carbon emission credit price, the value of these N2O is about 6 billion yuan. It is worth mentioning that the current carbon price in my country is still far lower than that in the EU. In order to optimize the distribution of carbon dioxide, Lijie Consulting believes that my country’s carbon price still has a lot of room for growth. At that time, carbon trading will bring great economic benefits to enterprises.
Although the current national carbon trading system only includes the power industry, with the gradual maturity of the carbon trading market and the establishment of carbon emission algorithm standards, the inclusion of the chemical industry in the carbon trading system is just around the corner. It is worth noting that Chongqing, as a pilot city, has incorporated N2O into the carbon trading system in 2014.
High investment, but higher returns
While the N2O transaction has huge market potential, it also puts forward higher requirements for adipic acid companies.
The premise of being able to sell carbon allowances is that the company has achieved emission reductions. In the adipic acid industry, tail gas emission reduction requires the construction of a complete set of tail gas treatment devices, which requires a huge initial investment. In addition, enterprises need to purchase expensive catalysts, which further increases the cost of tail gas treatment.
Faced with high costs, the best way to encourage companies to invest is to give them higher returns. Before 2012, CDM (Clean Development Mechanism, Clean Development Mechanism) helped individual domestic adipic acid companies obtain high profits through carbon trading. However, as the European Union stopped purchasing carbon allowances for the two, the economic benefits of tail gas treatment were huge. discount. Rate Jie Consulting believes that the high initial investment and poor economic benefits have extinguished the enthusiasm of my country’s adipic acid enterprises for tail gas treatment.
Fortunately, carbon trading is not far away from us. At that time, the significance of tail gas treatment by adipic acid enterprises is not only to fulfill their own social responsibilities, but also to obtain good economic benefits through carbon trading.
In the era when my country is moving towards carbon neutrality, adipic acid companies will gain new profit channels, but it also requires all companies to plan ahead and be ready to meet the day when the chemical industry and N2O are included in the national carbon trading system.
