Carbon Emission Calculation And Emission Reduction Potential Assessment Of Copper Smelting Industry In China

The continuous increase of carbon dioxide（CO₂）emissions has become a serious environmental crisis facing all mankind.Since the industrial revolution,the consumption of fossil fuels and other energy sources has caused a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions,which has intensified the greenhouse effect and triggered a series of environmental disasters,endangering the survival and development of life on earth.In the context of achieving the goal of“Peak carbon dioxide emissions”and“Carbon neutrality”,China,as a major producer and consumer of resources in the world,is facing enormous challenges.As one of the mainstay industries of China’s national economic development,the copper industry,with the characteristics of“high energy consumption”and“high carbon emission”,caused a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions.Based on this,in order to investigate the current situation and future development trend of carbon emissions in China’s copper smelting industry,this study adopted the“bottom-up”carbon emission accounting method to account the carbon emissions caused by energy consumption in the main carbon dioxide emission segments（copper mining and cathode copper smelting）of China copper industry from 2010 to 2019,and used scenario analysis and the Grey prediction model to predict the future demand for copper industry and the development trend of carbon dioxide in China’s copper smelting industry based on historical emissions.In addition,this study also selected several representative copper smelting enterprises in China as cases to analyze the CO₂ emission characteristics of the copper smelting process.In order to determine the peak CO₂ emissions and carbon emission reduction potential of China’s copper smelting industry,and combined with the influencing factors of policy reform such as the improvement of energy-saving technical efficiency,the adjustment of copper smelting industry structure and energy structure,the“top-down”scenario analysis method was used to estimate the carbon dioxide emission of China’s copper smelting industry in different scenarios during 2021-2035,with a view to exploring effective emission reduction measures for copper smelting industry in the future.The specific conclusions are as follows:（1）The overall energy structure of the copper mining and cathode copper smelting in China’s copper industry is stable,mainly composed of fossil fuels such as coal,oil and natural gas and electricity,and the overall CO₂ emissions caused by energy consumption shows an upward trend.Both the copper mining and cathode copper smelting are caused by the consumption of electricity,which accounts for more than 80%of the total emissions.Among the fossil fuel energy consumption,carbon dioxide emissions from coal combustion account for 50%-85%of the total fossil fuel combustion emissions.From the production level of enterprises,the main source of CO₂ emissions in the production process of small and medium-sized copper enterprises are caused by fuel combustion and electricity consumption in each production process,accounting for 60%-90%of the total emissions.The difference between process technology and smelting raw materials has a significant impact on the energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission in the production process.Advanced technologies such as“Two-step Copper Smelting”,“Flash Smelting”and“Double Bottom Blowing Smelting”have better energy-saving potential and can inhibit carbon dioxide emission.Secondly,the carbon dioxide emission of recycled copper with waste copper as raw material is only 1/3 of that of primary copper production with copper concentrate as raw material.（2）The forecast results of copper demand based on population variable speed,per capita copper demand and copper demand growth rate of 4%,3.3%and 2.5%show that China’s copper demand maintains an overall upward trend in the future,with copper demand peaking in 2044 and 2031 for the high-speed and medium-speed population development scenarios,respectively,and copper demand does not peak in the forecast time for the low-speed population development scenario.The development trend of the medium-speed population development scenario from 2021 to 2050 is more in line with the current situation of China’s copper industry and future policy requirements.The forecast results based on historical emissions show that the total carbon dioxide emissions from copper smelting industry will increase year by year during 2021-2035.（3）CO₂emissions from China’s copper smelting industry peak in 2033 in the baseline scenario,and both the low-carbon scenario and the enhanced target scenario can achieve the goal of“Peak carbon dioxide emissions”by 2025.Compared to the baseline scenario without any optimization variables,the variable that contributes most to the CO₂reduction rate in the low-carbon scenario and the enhanced target scenario is the energy mix adjustment,which reduces CO₂ emissions by 14.87%-16.79%and 34.2%-38.96%during 2021-2035,respectively.In the enhanced target scenario,the contribution of enhanced energy efficiency technology efficiency to the CO₂ reduction rate increases from 9.10%in 2021 to 15.63%in 2025,and the impact of this variable remains stable after 2025 due to the rapid development of advanced technological innovation represented by“Bath Smelting”and“Flash Smelting”in China.However,China’s recycled copper production started late,so the carbon reduction potential of increasing the proportion of recycled copper production is the largest,and the reduction rate of CO₂emissions increases from 5.31%and 10.34%in 2021 to 28.5%and 38.89%in 2035 in the low carbon scenario and the enhanced target scenario,respectively.