Modeling the Response of Industry to Environmental Constraint

摘要

For industry, and especially for large energy-consuming industries, energy prices and environmental constraints are the main drivers towards energy efficiency. By this time, many energy efficiency technologies exist on the market and some technological breakthrough processes (e.g. based on Carbon Capture and Storage CCS, or electrolysis in steel industry) are being studied as alternatives to traditional CO2-emitting processes. But their adoption will depend mainly on their economical competitiveness. Emission trading is a new instrument that can modify industry's response by adding a cost to CO2 emissions. We use a prospective energy .model (TIMES-MARKAL) to assess the response of industry to environmental constraint: We illustrate our work by examining die main energy-intensive industrial sectors in France for two carbon-constraint scenarios. A medium-incentive carbon tax (50 E/t) has an impact on the energy mix. Natural gas would replace coal as the main energy use in industry (2050 horizon). This change leads to a 19 % drop in consumed energy by industry. This is a significant but unstable result because this is only due to one industrial sector (steel industry). We found 'no significant effect of a 50 E/t carbon tax on the other industrial sectors. To reach important gains in terms of CO2 reduction (factor 4 scenario), industry needs CO2 Capture and Storage technology. But some other technological breakthrough processes could also help, such as electrolysis in steel industry. Today these'R&D 'processes are too expensive, but with a strong environmental constraint, they could become competitive.