Decarbonizing the Chemical Industry - 2024

Decarbonizing the Chemical Industry - 2024

Summary

The chemicals industry accounts for approximately 2% of emissions and is the largest industrial energy consumer. The sector’s carbon emissions stem from the combination of process energy which is required for chemical reactions as well as the use of fossil fuels as a feedstock. This report identifies four key methodologies for improving the sector’s emissions footprint: increasing process efficiency and electrification, green hydrogen, CCUS, and biomass and waste-based feedstocks. These four measures address the sector’s process energy and feedstock requirements.

The energy transition technology interventions identified within this report can also be broken down into strategies that provide near-term and long-term emission reduction. Shorter-term emission reduction will focus on reducing energy demand through increasing process efficiency. This report outlines how applications of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), and digital twins can be used to identify equipment inefficiencies and optimize chemical plant operations.

However, in the longer term, there is a need to decouple production from emissions, which will require the industry to dramatically shift its relationship with carbon. CCUS retrofits can be used to avert emissions from plants, but this technology is contingent on the emergence of a wider CCUS transport and storage infrastructure. Meanwhile, green hydrogen, biomass and plastic waste all represent alternatives that can be used to reduce the sector’s reliance on fossil fuels for feedstock.

Key Highlights

• All major chemical products are expected to experience an increase in production in response to increasing demand. Polypropylene and polyethylene are forecast to experience a growth in production of CAGR 3.8% and 2.8%, respectively, between 2024 and 2030.
• Meanwhile major products such as ammonia will experience a slower growth of 1.7% across the same time frame. However, the carbon intensity of ammonia production will cause this small increases to have a significant impact on the emission footprint of the wider industry, with ammonia alone accounting for 45% of the chemical sector’s emissions.
• Technological innovation will facilitate a decoupling between chemical production and energy demand, which will be key to short-term emission reductions.
• Developing novel catalysts that reduce process energy requirements and energy recovery measures will be key to cutting the sector’s energy demand and preventing waste.
• Diversifying feedstocks by using biogenic materials such as crops and waste products offers a route to decreasing reliance on fossil fuels. In addition, plastic waste can be recycled into new chemical product feedstock through processes such as pyrolysis.
• Industrial energy demand is expected to increase strongly between 2024 and 2035, growing at CAGR of 7% across the time frame. As a result of this growth, the industrial sector will hold an increasing proportion of global power demand, with its share rising by 2.4% between 2024 and 2035.

Scope

• Chemical sector emissions, key chemical companies emission disclosure, chemical decarbonization strategies, low-carbon hydrogen, CCUS, increasing efficiency, alternative waste and biomass-based feedstocks.

Reasons to Buy

• Identify the market trends within the industry and assess what the biggest players in chemical production are doing to reduce emissions.
• Develop market insight of the major technologies used to decarbonize chemical production through case studies from industry leaders.
• Understand the chemical industry adoption trends of emerging low-carbon technologies such as hydrogen and CCUS.