Sustainability footprints of a renewable carbon transition for the petrochemical sector within planetary boundaries
The petrochemical sector will play a crucial role in developing low-carbon transition technologies, but the industry also contributes a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. Momentum is building to help reduce the carbon footprint of this hard-to-abate sector, particularly through repl...
| Autores: | , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Jaén |
| Repositorio: | RUJA. Repositorio Institucional de la Producción Científica de la Universidad de Jaén |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ruja.ujaen.es:10953/7330 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10953/7330 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | absolute sustainability assessment biomass carbon capture and utilization chemical industry green methanol planetary boundaries renewable carbon sustainability footprints Climate Change |
| Sumario: | The petrochemical sector will play a crucial role in developing low-carbon transition technologies, but the industry also contributes a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. Momentum is building to help reduce the carbon footprint of this hard-to-abate sector, particularly through replacing fossil carbon feedstocks with carbon from biomass, captured CO2, and other recycled resources, but the broader implications of these so-called “solutions” remain unclear. Here, we assess the overall sustainability of such “renewable carbon pathways” by quantifying their life-cycle environmental footprints with respect to the previously defined nine planetary boundaries. We show that although a shift toward renewable carbon pathways could indeed reduce CO2 emissions by 25% to over 100%, the scenario with the lowest carbon footprint could exceed the biodiversity planetary boundary by at least 30%. Our work highlights the potential pitfalls of overlooking global environmental guardrails beyond greenhouse gas emissions reduction and identifies new avenues for quantifying the environmental footprint of decarbonization solutions for hard-to-abate sectors. |
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