Qiang Yue

Measuring the Decoupling Progress in Developed and Developing Countries

The relationship between economic development and the ecological environment is the key to sustainable development of human society. With the rapid economic development, the demand for resources has increased dramatically, which has led to problems such as depletion of resources and environmental pollution. Therefore, the relationship between resource use and economic growth needs to be studied to formulate corresponding resource use policies to facilitate the sustainable development of human society. This paper uses the resource decoupling indicators to study the decoupling condition of domestic material consumption (DMC) and material footprint (MF) indicators of three BRICS countries and three OECD countries from 1990 to 2015. Resources include biomass, non-metallic minerals, fossil fuels, and metal ores. Based on the results from these cases, we find that developed countries have a better decoupling condition than developing countries in the DMC level, but there is not much difference between developed and developing countries at the MF level. The developing countries’ decoupling condition of MF is better than that of DMC, while the developed countries’ decoupling condition is opposite. This study also emphasizes the importance of developing decoupling policies by selecting an appropriate resource use indicator.

Carbon flow analysis and Carbon emission reduction of FCC in Chinese oil refineries

The major problem of the energy production in oil refineries is the high emission of CO2 in China. The fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCC) is the key source of carbon emission in the oil refineries. According to the statistical data, the carbon emission of FCC unit accounts for more than 31% for the typical oil refineries. The carbon flow of FCC in the typical Chinese oil refineries were evaluated and analysed, which aimed at the solution of CO2 emission reduction. The method of substances flow analysis (SFA) and the mathematical programming were used to evaluate the carbon metabolism and optimize the carbon emission. The results indicated that the combustion emission of the reaction-regeneration subsystem (RRS) was the major source of FCC. The quantity of CO2 emission of RSS was more than 90%. The combustion efficiency and the amount of residual oil affected the carbon emission of RRS most according to the optimized analysis of carbon emission reduction. Moreover, the fractionation subsystem (TFS) had the highest environmental efficiency and the absorption-stabilization subsystem (ASS) had the highest resource efficiency (approximately to 1) of carbon.

Research on Raw Material Consumption and its Socioeconomic Divers of Shenyang

Chinas resource consumption has been increased rapidly with the development of economy. As one of Chinas most important industrializing cities, Shenyang faces even severer situation of resource restriction. It is important to analyze Raw Material Consumption (RMC) of Shenyang and its socioeconomic divers before designing future environmental and economic plans. In this study, we calculate the RMC of Shenyang during 2002-2012, and then use Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA) to find the driving factors of it. Results show that RMC of Shenyang was increased by 160% from 93 million tons to 247 million tons during the studied period. Construction and heavy manufacture sectors contributed the most to the resource consumption. In terms of driving factors, final demand level was the most significant one, and production structure partly impeded the increasing of RMC. It is suggested that more attention should be paid to construction investment and improvement of production structure to control the increase of resource use.

Development and Evolution of Aluminum Industry in China Based on Aluminum Flow Analysis@@@Development and Evolution of Aluminum Industry in China Based on Aluminum Flow Analysis

Abstract The whole process of aluminum cycle consists of four stages: Production of alumina and primary aluminum, fabrication and manufacture of aluminum products, use of aluminum final products, and recycling of obsolete aluminum products. Aluminum cycle in China in 2011 was analyzed using alumium flow diagram, and the following indices were obtained: The resource self-support ratio of alumina, aluminum and the whole aluminum industry were 53.18%, 95.58% and 54.85%, respectively; self-produced and net imported aluminum scrap use ratios of the aluminum industry were 4.68% and 7.98%, respectively. Aluminum cycles and aluminum flow indices in China of the year 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2008–2010 were also analyzed. It was found that from 1990 to 2011, imported Al-containing resources increased and imported bauxite has increased significantly since 2005. Resources self-support ratio of aluminum industry changed gradually from fully self-support to depencdent on the imports of raw materials. Self-produced auminum scrap use ratio presented downtrend basically and the imported aluminum scrap use ratio was greater than self-produced aluminum scrap use ratio after 1995.