Carbon emissions locked - in trade

In recent years there has been a growing concern about the emission trade balance of countries. It is due to the fact that countries with an open economy are active players in the international trade, though trade is not only a major factor in forging a country’s economic structure anymore, but it does contribute to the movement of embodied emissions beyond the country borders. This issue is especially relevant from the carbon accounting policy’s point of view, as it is known that the production-based principle is in effect now in the Kyoto agreement. The study aims at revealing the interdependence of countries on international trade and its environmental impacts, and how the carbon accounting method plays a crucial role in evaluating a country’s environmental performance and its role in the climate mitigation processes. The input-output models are used in the methodology, as they provide an appropriate framework for this kind of environmental accounting; the analysis shows an international comparison of four European countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Hungary) with extended trading activities and carbon emissions. Moving from the production-based approach in the climate policy, to the consumptionperspective principle and allocation [15], it would also help increasing the efficiency of emission reduction targets and the evaluation of the sustainability dimension and its impacts of international trade. The results of the study have shown that there is an importance of distinction between the two emission allocation approaches, both from global and local level point of view.

Techno-Economic Assessment of LNG and Diesel Production and Global Trading Based on Hybrid PV-Wind Power Plants and PtG, GtL and PtL Technologies

With growing demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquid transportation fuels, and concerns about climate change and causes of greenhouse gas emissions, this master’s thesis introduces a new value chain design for LNG and transportation fuels and respective fundamental business cases based on hybrid PV-Wind power plants. The value chains are composed of renewable electricity (RE) converted by power-to-gas (PtG), gas-to-liquids (GtL) or power-to-liquids (PtL) facilities into SNG (which is finally liquefied into LNG) or synthetic liquid fuels, mainly diesel, respectively. The RE-LNG or RE-diesel are drop-in fuels to the current energy system and can be traded everywhere in the world. The calculations for the hybrid PV-Wind power plants, electrolysis, methanation (H2tSNG), hydrogen-to-liquids (H2tL), GtL and LNG value chain are performed based on both annual full load hours (FLh) and hourly analysis. Results show that the proposed RE-LNG produced in Patagonia, as the study case, is competitive with conventional LNG in Japan for crude oil prices within a minimum price range of about 87 - 145 USD/barrel (20 – 26 USD/MBtu of LNG production cost) and the proposed RE-diesel is competitive with conventional diesel in the European Union (EU) for crude oil prices within a minimum price range of about 79 - 135 USD/barrel (0.44 – 0.75 €/l of diesel production cost), depending on the chosen specific value chain and assumptions for cost of capital, available oxygen sales and CO2 emission costs. RE-LNG or RE-diesel could become competitive with conventional fuels from an economic perspective, while removing environmental concerns. The RE-PtX value chain needs to be located at the best complementing solar and wind sites in the world combined with a de-risking strategy. This could be an opportunity for many countries to satisfy their fuel demand locally. It is also a specific business case for countries with excellent solar and wind resources to export carbon-neutral hydrocarbons, when the decrease in production cost is considerably more than the shipping cost. This is a unique opportunity to export carbon-neutral hydrocarbons around the world where the environmental limitations on conventional hydrocarbons are getting tighter.

A Study of Environmental Disclosures in the European Oil and Gas Industry : With Reference to the Global Reporting Initiative

Background and Problem: Sustainability reporting is a growing trend in the society. One of the most exposed industries to environmental matters is the oil and gas industry, which commit to sustainability reporting in order to deal with the industry’s destructive operations. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides voluntary guidelines in sustainability reporting, which increase transparency for the company’s stakeholders. However, it is controversial that the oil and gas industry put a great effort into sustainability reporting even though the industry is environmentally destructive. This gap is interesting to investigate and will contribute to the academic discussion. Therefore, this thesis will focus on the sustainability reporting in the oil and gas industry and to what extent the industry actually discloses material environmental information about their operations. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the sustainability reporting has changed in the oil and gas industry in Europe. This is performed from a stakeholder perspective. Further, it aims to investigate how oil and gas companies have followed the GRI guidelines and how the reporting has changed over time. Method: A quantitative method is used in order to answer the research questions. The data sample is based on oil and gas companies reporting according to the GRI framework during year 2012 to year 2014. The empirical data is gathered from the studied companies’ environmental category in their sustainability reports. Further, a content analysis technique, with a coding scheme, was set up to interpret and analyse the information. To enable an easy overview of the findings, the relevant data is presented in tables and diagrams. Empirical Findings and Conclusion: The majority of the studied companies have increased their level of compliance in the environmental category. Although, the majority of the companies have increased their reporting, the compliance level differs between the companies. The most reported sectors are the; “Water”, “Biodiversity”, “Emissions”, “Effluents and Waste”, “Compliance”, and “Overall”. Further, the empirical findings show that there is an overall increase in the amount of disclosed information per indicator. The conclusion of this thesis is that the environmental disclosures have increased in the oil and gas industry from year 2012 to 2014.

The Coupled Aerosol and Tracer Transport model to the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CATT-BRAMS) - Part 1: Model description and evaluation

We introduce the Coupled Aerosol and Tracer Transport model to the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CATT-BRAMS). CATT-BRAMS is an on-line transport model fully consistent with the simulated atmospheric dynamics. Emission sources from biomass burning and urban-industrial-vehicular activities for trace gases and from biomass burning aerosol particles are obtained from several published datasets and remote sensing information. The tracer and aerosol mass concentration prognostics include the effects of sub-grid scale turbulence in the planetary boundary layer, convective transport by shallow and deep moist convection, wet and dry deposition, and plume rise associated with vegetation fires in addition to the grid scale transport. The radiation parameterization takes into account the interaction between the simulated biomass burning aerosol particles and short and long wave radiation. The atmospheric model BRAMS is based on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS), with several improvements associated with cumulus convection representation, soil moisture initialization and surface scheme tuned for the tropics, among others. In this paper the CATT-BRAMS model is used to simulate carbon monoxide and particulate material (PM(2.5)) surface fluxes and atmospheric transport during the 2002 LBA field campaigns, conducted during the transition from the dry to wet season in the southwest Amazon Basin. Model evaluation is addressed with comparisons between model results and near surface, radiosondes and airborne measurements performed during the field campaign, as well as remote sensing derived products. We show the matching of emissions strengths to observed carbon monoxide in the LBA campaign. A relatively good comparison to the MOPITT data, in spite of the fact that MOPITT a priori assumptions imply several difficulties, is also obtained.

Determination of the minimum value of the safety factor from geodesic Alfven eigenmodes in Joint European Torus

An analysis of the experimental conditions under which low-frequency (70-150 kHz) Alfven eigertmodes (AE) are excited during the monster sawtooth in Joint European Torus [F Romanelli et al, Proceedings of the 22nd IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, Geneva, Switzerland, 2008] is presented for the specific case of a discharge with ion cyclotron heating (5 MW) Using a simplified AE model for modes excited at the Alfven wave continuum maximum with geodesic corrections taken into account, the temporal evolution of the value of the safety factor q(0) at the magnetic axis is determined We describe a new scheme to determine the time variation of q(0) that works under conditions in which other standard diagnostics, such as the motional Stark effect do not give reliable results such as during a monster sawtooth [doi 10 1063/1 3494212]

European 1: A globally important clonal complex of Mycobacterium bovis

We have identified a globally important clonal complex of Mycobacterium bovis by deletion analysis of over one thousand strains from over 30 countries. We initially show that over 99% of the strains of M. bovis, the cause of bovine tuberculosis, isolated from cattle in the Republic of Ireland and the UK are closely related and are members of a single clonal complex marked by the deletion of chromosomal region RDEu1 and we named this clonal complex European 1 (Eu1). Eu1 strains were present at less than 14% of French, Portuguese and Spanish isolates of M. bovis but are rare in other mainland European countries and Iran. However, strains of the Eu1 clonal complex were found at high frequency in former trading partners of the UK (USA, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Canada). The Americas, with the exception of Brazil, are dominated by the Eu1 clonal complex which was at high frequency in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico as well as North America. Eu1 was rare or absent in the African countries surveyed except South Africa. A small sample of strains from Taiwan were non-Eu1 but, surprisingly, isolates from Korea and Kazakhstan were members of the Eu1 clonal complex. The simplest explanation for much of the current distribution of the Eu1 clonal complex is that it was spread in infected cattle, such as Herefords, from the UK to former trading partners, although there is evidence of secondary dispersion since. This is the first identification of a globally dispersed clonal complex M. bovis and indicates that much of the current global distribution of this important veterinary pathogen has resulted from relatively recent International trade in cattle. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.