University of Leeds advises aluminium industry to invest in green electricity

A research led by the University of Leeds has advised the industry that, in order to achieve the net zero objective, industry must accelerate investment in new technologies that allow materials to be manufactured using renewable power. The report warns that national programmes for replacing fossil fuels with renewables must have a holistic approach to energy consumption and material creation, or industries would be unable to use renewable-generated power.

It is critical to ensure that no power is produced from fossil fuels by 2050 in order to achieve net zero emissions. However, if industry is unable to utilise this power, its impact will be limited. Steel production accounts for a tenth of all CO2 emissions in developed nations, but new technologies to make steel using energy are not expected to be fully operational until at least 2040, according to current projections.

Aluminium, the second most used metal, is manufactured using electricity and accounts for 3 percent of all CO2 emissions. When compared to steel, it saves substantial weight and energy when utilised in transportation systems. However, since 2000, two-thirds of global aluminium production has shifted from nuclear-powered countries like the United Kingdom to fossil-fuelled countries like China and the Persian Gulf.

"Delays in replacing existing steel and aluminium manufacturing capacity represent a crucial ‘lock in’ constraint on achieving net zero. Humanity's overwhelming dependence on steel, which accounts for 94 percent of all metal production, and the size of new aluminium manufacturing capacity in China and the Persian Gulf, are a huge blockage that cannot be ignored. The UK Net Zero Strategy, published last week, recognizes this problem, but lacks detail on how to tackle it,” said Dr Alan Grainger, the lead author of the study from the University Of Leeds School Of Geography.

According to the article, governments should tighten international carbon reporting standards for energy-intensive businesses so that total CO2 emissions during the manufacturing and lifetime of materials may be evaluated more openly in assessing progress toward national net zero objectives. To make it economically viable to implement new industrial technology with minimal CO2 emissions, the carbon price must also rise.

“To achieve net zero we need to remove as much as CO2 as we put into the atmosphere. It’s like those old greengrocers’ scales – with carbon emissions on the one side and carbon removals on the other. We can take emissions out of the atmosphere by planting new forests and deploying carbon capture and storage technology,” said Dr Grainger, highlighting the fact that reducing CO2 emission is only half of the challenge achieved. 

“If governments had followed a step-by-step afforestation plan set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in a 1990 study to which he contributed. As well as soaking up CO2 from the atmosphere, forests provide wood products that can substitute for metals and petroleum-based plastics,” added Dr. Grainger.

Instead, the pace of afforestation has decreased since then, while CO2 emissions have more than doubled. Continued tropical deforestation, which is a major source of CO2, cancels out the sluggish pace of forest expansion.

While Dr. Grainger and his co-author, Professor George Smith, a former Professor of Materials at Oxford University, advocate for a fresh afforestation campaign, this should be supported by increased measures to prevent tropical deforestation under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Because of the delay in global forest growth and the time required to adopt new industrial processes with low CO2 emissions, carbon capture and storage technology will become significantly more important. This will be especially essential in the United Kingdom, where woods now only remove 4 percent of national CO2 emissions. The UK Net Zero Strategy recognises this, but only proposes a minor increase in carbon capture and storage capacity in the short term.

source https://www.alcircle.com/news/university-of-leeds-advises-aluminium-industry-to-invest-in-green-electricity-71749