Introduction
Right from the times of Adam and Eve, the first human being on the earth, the quest for fulfilling the needs in the Cheapest, Easiest, Quickest (CEQ – “Sick”) has been endeavored and explored, thanks to the ever-fertile human brain. In never-ending zeal (Well! Avoiding to word it “Greed”) to excel, we as humans always kept Nature “N”, our Mother Earth as a last priority. The consumption-oriented civilization, in the race to being richer to richest as a group or nation, the scientific and behavioral inventions focused on CEQ philosophy with N (nature) kept at bay, be it deforestation, mining, fossil fuel usage, over-consumption, and over-indulgence culture. Due to such historical misdoing, now nature is holding over “NECQ”- Nature Enabled Checks and Questions on account of almost irreversible climate change issues and raising an alarm about our survival.
The impact of climate change can be as below:
- Physical:
- Glaciers, snow, ice, permafrost
- Rivers, lakes, floods, drought
- Coastal erosion, sea level effects
- Biological:
- Terrestrial Ecosystems
- Wildfires
- Marine Ecosystems
- HUMAN & MANAGED SYSTEM:
- Water scarcity and food production
- Health and wellbeing
- Cities, settlements, and infrastructure
- Economics
This article is intended to scientifically address the above issue of maneuvering from CEQ-“Sick” strategy, to “NICE- Nature Inclined Cost Effective” strategy to save the feverish mother, bring her out of the ventilator and make her & sons, and daughter ever healthy. This can be achieved through a Concept Called “Net-Zero Platter” → Combination and Adoption of various methods of Decarbonization into Industrial processes, which can lead to at least balancing the amount of GreenHouse Gas (GHG) production with the removal of the same from the atmosphere.
WHY CO2 IS A NECESSARY EVIL?
It’s now very common knowledge that CO2, CO, etc are the most dominant GHGs, as their layer in the atmosphere impedes the reflected heat from the earth’s surface getting evacuated out of the earth’s atmosphere. Human beings and for that matter any living being needs energy for their survival & further, improve their way of living. Like food, electricity, fuel for driving cars, machinery for buildings, and heating applications.
For food, fertilizer is needed. For producing fertilizer (ammonia derivatives) natural gas is used as a feedstock to produce hydrogen, the key component for manufacturing ammonia. Natural gas is comprised of a molecule called methane, which is CH4. In order to extract Hydrogen from this molecule, the associated carbon atom is combined with oxygen, which is then emitted to the atmosphere as CO2 or CO.
In the case of electricity, typically produced through the burning of coal, which is a complex compound composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with hydrogen being the key element that is capable of generating heat energy. This in turning releases carbon as CO2 , CO, etc. comparatively in huge quantities. In the case of driving a vehicle, two aspects are very important. The first one is the vehicle itself and the other one is fuel such as Diesel, Petrol, CNG, LPG, etc. Any vehicle is composed of metal. In order to produce the metal and fabricate it into the shape of a car, the complete process needs high energy-intensive activities like mining the ore which needs heavy-duty machinery (and mobility that runs on fossil fuel), refining of ores through furnace applications, which in turn needs coal or natural gas as a fuel. Further, all the above processes need a huge quantum of electricity, which is conventionally produced through fossil fuels. Further for driving vehicles, diesel or petrol is needed which is also a complex compound of Propane, Butane, etc., which is fundamentally composed of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen atoms. Similar as explained about coal, this too emits CO₂ CO.
The list is endless, but the common factors are the following:
- Energy contributor in all the processes is the Hydrogen element.
- Hydrogen is not freely and easily available but very abundantly available in complex covalent bonding with carbon known as fossil Fuel.
- As a CEQ mind bent, fossil fuel is cheaper, easier, and quicker to extract H2 from these compounds and let CO2, CO be emitted unabated.
Calibration:
Humans got sensitized to this a few years before which led to the development of a global apex committee called IPCC- Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change. It started calibrating the CO2 emissions across the globe, assessing & collaborating its influence on earth’s average temperature. This temperature has a huge bearing on climate stability and predictability across the globe which in turn defines the techno-economic as well as survival threat to the human race and living beings.
This calibration is called the RCP scenario, which is the “Representative Concentration Path”. RCP x.y explains about the Atmospheric Radioactive Forcing by x.y W/m2 that can lead to global average temperature rise w.r.t pre-industrialized era. Eg. RCP 2.6, the Global average temperature rise by the end of 2100 will be 2°C subject to the several conditions as outlined in Figure-1 below:
To sensitize and check on CO2 emission please refer to Fig 2. As per IPCC 2018 report, appx 580 Gt of CO2 remains in our carbon budget. If we continue our current path of CO2 emissions ( approx. 38-40Gt per annum), then this budget will run out within 15 Years. As per the latest IPCC statement, we are about to cross the 1.5° C limit in this decade only!
Fig 3: shows the trend of CO2 emission from different advanced economies of the world.
Please understand – Power contributes only 40% of CO2 emissions, the remaining 60 % is by industry, transport, building, agriculture etc. Let Fig.4 from an Indian perspective, the sector-wise pie chart on total energy demand can be referred to in Fig.5.
- With the rise in the Indian economy, the standard of living also rose to an extent which makes India the world’s third-largest energy-consuming country.
- An increase in global earth surface temperature led to an increase in energy demand from people. This energy demand is now almost double if we compare it to the last 2 decades. Fig- 5 shows how the energy demand of India is fulfilled from different fuels.
- About 80~85% of power demand is met from coal, biomass fuel, and oils. But over and above we import crude oil & gas worth 150 billion USD every year which we need to think over for its substitute.
It’s very clear that the energy transition is a must, and it is the responsibility of each human, each government body, corporate, and business entity. As a scientific approach, there are several steps to do that:
STEP 1:
CARBON FOOTPRINT
- Measure
- Monitor
- Mitigate
STEP 2:
CARBON EMISSIONS ARE TYPICALLY CLASSIFIED INTO 3 CATEGORIES
- SCOPE 1:
Scope 1 covers emissions from sources that an organisation owns or controls directly – for example from burning fuel in our fleet of vehicles - SCOPE 2:
Scope 2 are emissions that a company causes indirectly when the energy it purchases and uses is produced. For example, Thermal power imported from the grid the running the plant auxillaries. - SCOPE 3:
Scope 3 emcompasses emisions that are not produced by the company itself, and not the result of activities from assets owned or controlled bby them, but by those that it’s indirectly responsible for, up and down its valu chain like employees travelling by air. So, its fuel emission is countd in this scope.
STEP 2:
The easiest and most viable first step is solving SCOPE-2 emission by displacing conventional grey power (from fossil fuel) with green power like solar PV, Wind Turbines, and Hydro energy generally known as Renewable Energy (RE). As Grey power is a predictable, controllable, and stable source of power, by the simple addition of solar and wind one can’t completely displace grey power as green power especially Solar radiation and wind speed are intermittent and of uncontrolled nature. One can reach up to 40% RE with only Solar and wind typically known as RE-40. In order to achieve RE -100, complete displacement of grey power with RE power, predictability, and control is a must. This can be achieved by adding electrical storage into RE complexes like battery storage, pump storage, and other forms of long-duration storage. Well, these components have the capability to solve many other issues related to grid voltage and reactive power steady state as well as transient state issues that threaten the grid due to standalone solar and wind installation. Explanation of this by itself is a big topic and needs another paper.
The last step, which is definitely not the least but actually the most important and talked about, is Scope-1, which can be done by decarbonizing the in-house process.
This be done broadly in two ways:
- Capture the CO2, and CO while releasing them and stop it from emitting into the atmosphere. This is called CCUS i.e. Carbon Capture Utilization & Storage. The carbon captured from this can be utilized as a feedstock for other processes such as aerated drinks, chemical feedstock, etc. The issue with this technology is that it can capture 85-90% of COx, its high cost of implementation, and further, transporting COx at the process end of usage.
- Producing Hydrogen directly from the water through electrolysis, which in turn does not emit COx at all and on the contrary emits 8 times the Oxygen! Thus, making the process not only Net Zero but net carbon negative!! This is called green hydrogen when electrical energy provided to the electrolyzer is 100% through RE. Ref Fig 6 for the process.
The Green Hydrogen pathway has exponential potential to decarbonize all the processes even those that can’t be done directly through RE such as crude Oil desulfurization, Ammonia production, Direct Reduction of iron (DRI), Methanol and ethanol production, which can displace the fossil fuel 100% and has the “NICE” potential of keep growing our quality of life and in turn, having a positive impact on nature and its sustainability. This reminds me of a metaphor, which I have converted to the world of decarbonization as “Jahan Na Pahunche Electron, Wahan Pahunche Hydrogen” (Where electron (electricity) can’t reach to solve, their hydrogen can solve).
The problem as of now is the high cost of production of green hydrogen, its storage, and transportation.
As of date, in the production of Green Hydrogen, 70% of Capex is from RE, remaining is the electrolyzer and its BoS. Further, LCOH (Levelized Cost of Hydrogen) is in the range of 3.5 to 5.5USD/kg (depending on the RE region, Green electron transport mechanism, project scale, etc), which is much costlier than Grey Hydrogen ( between 1.5 to 2 USD/kg).
Due to the high level of investment into R&D globally on electrolyzer technology, the development of Giga factories for scaling-up electrolyzer manufacturing, huge incentives by Govt, and further carbon taxation on non-green products, it is expected that in the coming 7-10 years, green hydrogen will reach parity with the Grey Hydrogen.
Looking into all the above, it is inferred that now the world has a “Platter” of solutions that has the potential to 100% decarbonize the world and reverse the order of nature for the better and bring forth a REAL Sustainable Development that not only improves the quality of life but also take along the nature and make it green and greener.
