Top 10 Development Trends in the Chemical Industry in the Context of Carbon Neutrality!

Carbon neutrality is a relatively certain development trend in China's chemical industry in the future. Under the development trend of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, China's chemical industry will usher in a huge change. The general direction of change, the editor believes that it will be the transformation and upgrading of the chemical industry, carbon reduction and the transformation of the dual-carbon energy revolution.

Under such a general trend, how will the development of China's chemical industry change? Xiaobian's ten guesses about the future chemical industry

01

Under the general trend of carbon neutrality, China's energy structure, industrial structure and consumption structure will undergo major regional structural changes

First, in order to achieve carbon neutrality, China will always adhere to the development ideas of clean energy and green energy in the next 30 years. Among them, solar energy will be the main energy structure of the energy industry, followed by wind energy, tidal energy and other clean energy sources. In addition, hydrogen energy and other energy structures will become auxiliary, and the proportion of fossil energy consumption will gradually decrease until the balance with clean energy achieves the general trend of carbon neutrality.

Secondly, under the dual-carbon trend, the proportion of energy manufacturing attributes will gradually increase, and the cleaning equipment, environmental protection and recycling industries will be favored by the market for a long time, and the proportion of industrial influence will increase rapidly. The new energy vehicle manufacturing is expected to continue to replace traditional fuel locomotives, driving the realization of carbon neutrality from the energy consumption market.

02
Carbon trading and carbon trading in the chemical industry under the "dual carbon" trend will bring about a new trading system

The "13th Five-Year Plan" Work Plan for Controlling Greenhouse Gas Emissions issued by the State Council in 2016 clearly defined the construction and operation of a national carbon emission trading market. The main measures include three points: 1. Establish a national carbon emission trading system; 2. Start operation nationwide Carbon emissions trading market; 3. Strengthen the basic support capacity of national carbon emissions trading.

At present, China's carbon trading market is mainly a quota system, and chemical companies sell and purchase carbon emission quotas according to their own installations. However, the current carbon trading is only piloted in some provinces. The total amount of each pilot is loose, and emission control units often have excess quotas, resulting in low carbon trading prices. Therefore, there is still a big gap between China's carbon trading market and developed countries in Europe and the United States.

03
Large-scale, long-term energy storage is expected to drive the upgrading of new chemical materials industry

According to the overall trend of carbon neutrality, the development of China's new energy industry is essentially the development of clean and renewable energy. Among them, photovoltaic energy and wind energy have the greatest development fit. The essence of photovoltaic energy and wind energy lies in power transmission, energy storage and new energy. Therefore, energy storage is expected to be an important development direction in the future.

Energy storage mainly refers to the storage of electrical energy, mainly battery energy storage, inductor energy storage, capacitor energy storage, etc., of which battery energy storage is an important application direction at present. Battery energy storage, such as lead-acid battery energy storage, nickel-metal hydride battery energy storage, lithium-ion battery energy storage, etc., behind these batteries is an important application of China's new chemical materials.

04
Energy-saving renovation of chemical plants will be a long-term trend

Under the general trend of carbon neutrality, the energy-saving transformation of chemical plant production in China is expected to help Chinese chemical companies reduce carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality in the chemical industry.

The energy-saving transformation of chemical plants in my country mainly reflects the following directions:

1. Systematic transformation of key chemical industries, such as refining energy system optimization in petrochemical industry, lightening of olefin raw materials, advanced coal gasification, upgrading of nitric acid production technology, etc.

2. Upgrade the waste heat high-pressure recovery technology in chemical plants, and implement technological transformations such as waste heat recovery and utilization of flue gas systems in self-provided power plants, and integrated cycle power generation with supercritical mixed working fluid and high parameters.

3. Implement carbon capture, carbon utilization and carbon sequestration technologies in chemical plants, and strengthen the application of carbon dioxide in the chemical industry in fields such as oil extraction and plastic product processing.

05
Ultra-high voltage power transmission will drive the upgrade of new chemical materials

The overall development trend of China's new energy will be the development model of industrial chain integration. Among them, ultra-high voltage power transmission is a key link in China's new energy development. By 2035, China's UHV lines will achieve "national coverage". The UHV lines are spread all over China like capillaries. At that time, China will be a China with new energy as the main clean energy consumption.

06
A new round of supply-side structural reform in high energy-consuming industries

In the context of carbon neutrality, the related high-energy-consuming chemical industry will face a deep supply-side structural reform. After the production capacity reaches its peak in the short term, it is expected to bring about the integration of production capacity after the impact of the carbon neutrality trend.

According to relevant experience, the chemical industry that may undergo supply-side structural reforms under the trend of carbon neutrality may include coal-to-ethylene glycol, coal-to-methanol, synthetic ammonia, industrial silicon, calcium carbide, caustic soda, yellow phosphorus, MTO, and soda ash. Most of these industries belong to the industries with high energy consumption and high power consumption. With the implementation of carbon neutral policies in various provinces, cities and regions, it is expected to bring decades of development drive to the chemical industry, which has relatively development advantages.

07
Low-carbon new materials and degradable materials will benefit in the long run

For the future development of the new chemical materials industry, there are two driving logics, one is the growth of consumer demand driven by the dual-carbon policy, and the other is the policy-driven growth of low-carbon and degradable materials. Among them, low-carbon and degradable materials will be driven by policy to show explosive growth. This trend can be seen from the rapid growth of the scale of the PLA and PBAT industries to be built in the future.

08
The coal chemical industry will start the process of high efficiency and low carbonization

As we all know, the coal chemical industry is a key industry under the general trend of carbon neutrality, because coal chemical industry is an important carbon emission field in the chemical industry, and it is also a key transformation and upgrading industry in the future. Brother Pingtou believes that the future coal chemical industry will be a high-efficiency coal conversion and low-carbon production and operation industry, of which coal-to-gas conversion is expected to be an important development direction.

Under the general trend of carbon neutrality, the transformation of the coal chemical industry will be a key transformation direction in the chemical industry, and it will also be an industry with more in-depth reforms.

09
Decarbonization of the power industry provides more abundant raw materials for coal chemical industry

China's power industry ranks first in carbon emissions in all industries, so decarbonization of the power industry is an important reform direction to reduce carbon emissions. Regarding the decarbonization of the power industry, an important direction is photovoltaic power generation, wind power generation and other low-carbon power generation modes.

At the same time as the power industry continues to reduce its dependence on coal, the supply and application of coal in other industries is expected to increase substantially, resulting in a decline in the value of coal in the long run. Brother Pingtou believes that this will be beneficial to the production of coal chemical industry with coal as raw material, reduce the production cost of coal chemical industry, and drive the competitiveness of coal chemical production.

10
Decarbonisation of seaborne trade looms, positive for LNG

In 2020, the global seaborne trade volume will reach 11.47 billion tons, of which the coal trade volume exceeds 800 million tons, the crude oil trade volume exceeds 2 billion tons, the refined oil trade volume exceeds 1 billion tons, the LNG trade volume exceeds 300 million tons, and the total energy trade volume more than 4 billion tons.

According to the trend of seaborne trade volume, excluding the decline in overall trade volume caused by the epidemic in 2020, the trade volume of coal, crude oil and refined oil in the global seaborne market shows a gradual downward trend. have a direct impact on the transformation of the energy structure. However, the trade volume of LNG is gradually increasing. Due to the low-carbon energy properties of LNG, the global consumption of LNG will gradually increase, thus driving the growth of global trade volume. The editor believes that this trend will persist in the structure of global seaborne energy trade for decades to come.