Search eceee proceedings

Simulating geographically distributed production networks of a climate neutral European petrochemical industry

Panel: 2. Sustainable production towards a circular economy

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Clemens Schneider, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy, Germany
Mathieu Saurat, Wuppertal Institute, Germany

Abstract

The paper describes quantitative scenarios on a possible evolution of the EU petrochemical industry towards climate neutrality. This industry will be one of the remaining sectors in a climate neutral economy still handling hydrocarbon material to manufacture polymers. Concepts of a climate neutral chemical industry stress the need to consider the potential end-of-life emissions of polymers produced from fossil feedstock and draft the vision of using renewable electricity to produce hydrogen and to use renewable (hydro)carbon feedstock. The latter could be biomass, CO2 from the air or recycled feedstock from plastic waste streams.

The cost-optimization model used to develop the scenarios describes at which sites investments of industry in the production stock could take place in the future. Around 50 types of products, the related production processes and the respective sites have been collected in a database. The processes included cover the production chain from platform chemicals via intermediates to polymers. Pipelines allowing for efficient exchange of feedstock and platform chemicals between sites are taken into account as well. The model draws on this data to simulate capacity change at individual plants as well as plant utilization. Thus, a future European production network for petrochemicals with flows between the different sites and steps of the value chain can be sketched.

The scenarios described in this paper reveal how an electrification strategy could be implemented by European industry over time with minimized societal costs. Today’s existing assets as well as geographical variance of energy supply and the development of demand for different plastic sorts are the major model drivers.

Finally, implications for the chemical industry, the energy system and national or regional governments are discussed.

Watch presentation

Downloads

Download this paper as pdf: 2-037-20_Schneider.pdf

Download this presentation as pdf: 2-037-20_Saurat_pre.pdf