IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jrpoli/v77y2022ics0301420722000782.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparative resource-environment-economy assessment of coal- and oil-based aromatics production

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Junjie
  • Zhang, Yueling
  • Yang, Yanli
  • Zhang, Xiaomei
  • Zheng, Yonghong
  • Qian, Qi
  • Tian, Yajun
  • Xie, Kechang

Abstract

Aromatics is an important chemical material with a greatly increasing demand across the world. However, its production normally depends on the conventional oil-based naphtha to aromatics (OBNTA) route, resulting in difficulty for oil-shortage countries to meet local demand. The coal-based methanol to aromatics (CBMTA) route is considered a promising alternative to diversify the production of the aromatic whereas its industrial competitiveness relative to the OBNTA route has been not fully assessed at a resource-environment-economy level. This study proposes a comprehensive assessment framework that integrates the life cycle assessment, technical-economic analysis, and entropy weight method to quantify and compare the resource consumption, environmental emission, and economic benefit of the CBMTA and OBNTA routes. The operating data for the industrialized plants, economic data of China’s market, and background data from the LCA database are taken as the input of the assessment framework. The sensitivity to operating and economic data and uncertainty caused by original data, allocation procedures, and feedstock sources are considered. The assessment shows that the CBMTA route scores worse comprehensive competitiveness than the OBNTA route due to its higher resource consumption and environmental emission. However, it performs well in economic benefit at Chinese current prices, which may attract more attention from investors. Based on the assessment, a SWOT analysis is carried out to further address resource-environment-economy tradeoffs. The analysis shows a considerable prospect of the CBMTA route thanks to all kinds of external opportunities, which however need to vigorously promote cleaner production policies and specific investment strategies tailored to local resource-environment-economy conditions. The current work can help policymakers, stakeholders, and investors better understand the multi-dimensional tradeoffs and make decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Junjie & Zhang, Yueling & Yang, Yanli & Zhang, Xiaomei & Zheng, Yonghong & Qian, Qi & Tian, Yajun & Xie, Kechang, 2022. "Comparative resource-environment-economy assessment of coal- and oil-based aromatics production," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:77:y:2022:i:c:s0301420722000782
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.102629
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420722000782
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.102629?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Li, Junjie & Zhang, Yueling & Yang, Yanli & Zhang, Xiaomei & Wang, Nana & Zheng, Yonghong & Tian, Yajun & Xie, Kechang, 2022. "Life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis of ethanol production via coal and its competitors: A comparative study," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    2. Jiskani, Izhar Mithal & Cai, Qingxiang & Zhou, Wei & Ali Shah, Syed Ahsan, 2021. "Green and climate-smart mining: A framework to analyze open-pit mines for cleaner mineral production," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    3. Quintino, António & Catalão-Lopes, Margarida & Lourenço, João Carlos, 2019. "Can switching from gasoline to aromatics mitigate the price risk of refineries?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    4. Martínez-Rocamora, A. & Solís-Guzmán, J. & Marrero, M., 2016. "LCA databases focused on construction materials: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 565-573.
    5. Menegaki, Angeliki N. & Ahmad, Nisar & Aghdam, Reza FathollahZadeh & Naz, Amber, 2021. "The convergence in various dimensions of energy-economy-environment linkages: A comprehensive citation-based systematic literature review," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    6. Bui, Nuong Thi & Kawamura, Akira & Kim, Kyoung Woong & Prathumratana, Lunchakorn & Kim, Tae-Heok & Yoon, Suk-Ho & Jang, Min & Amaguchi, Hideo & Bui, Duong Du & Truong, Ngoc Tu, 2017. "Proposal of an indicator-based sustainability assessment framework for the mining sector of APEC economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 405-417.
    7. Zhang, Yueling & Li, Junjie & Yang, Xiaoxiao, 2021. "Comprehensive competitiveness assessment of four coal-to-liquid routes and conventional oil refining route in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    8. Gu, Fu & Wang, Jiqiang & Guo, Jianfeng & Fan, Ying, 2020. "Dynamic linkages between international oil price, plastic stock index and recycle plastic markets in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 167-179.
    9. Zhang, You & Yuan, Zengwei & Margni, Manuele & Bulle, Cécile & Hua, Hui & Jiang, Songyan & Liu, Xuewei, 2019. "Intensive carbon dioxide emission of coal chemical industry in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 540-550.
    10. Yan, Xiang & Bai, Jiancheng & Li, Xiafei & Chen, Zhonglu, 2022. "Can dimensional reduction technology make better use of the information of uncertainty indices when predicting volatility of Chinese crude oil futures?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    11. Li, Guangyao & Yang, Jin & Chen, Dingjiang & Hu, Shanying, 2017. "Impacts of the coming emission trading scheme on China’s coal-to-materials industry in 2020," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 837-849.
    12. Weber, Thomas A., 2014. "On the (non-)equivalence of IRR and NPV," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 25-39.
    13. Li, Guoxuan & Cui, Peizhe & Wang, Yinglong & Liu, Zhiqiang & Zhu, Zhaoyou & Yang, Sheng, 2020. "Life cycle energy consumption and GHG emissions of biomass-to-hydrogen process in comparison with coal-to-hydrogen process," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    14. García-Velásquez, Carlos A. & Cardona, Carlos A., 2019. "Comparison of the biochemical and thermochemical routes for bioenergy production: A techno-economic (TEA), energetic and environmental assessment," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 232-242.
    15. Wang, Di & Shen, Ye & Zhao, Yueying & He, Wei & Liu, Xue & Qian, Xiangyan & Lv, Tao, 2020. "Integrated assessment and obstacle factor diagnosis of China's scientific coal production capacity based on the PSR sustainability framework," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    16. Ling Tang & Jiabao Qu & Zhifu Mi & Xin Bo & Xiangyu Chang & Laura Diaz Anadon & Shouyang Wang & Xiaoda Xue & Shibei Li & Xin Wang & Xiaohong Zhao, 2019. "Substantial emission reductions from Chinese power plants after the introduction of ultra-low emissions standards," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 4(11), pages 929-938, November.
    17. Li, Hong-Zhou & Tian, Xian-Liang & Zou, Tao, 2015. "Impact analysis of coal-electricity pricing linkage scheme in China based on stochastic frontier cost function," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 296-305.
    18. Chen, Jianjun & Yang, Siyu & Qian, Yu, 2019. "A novel path for carbon-rich resource utilization with lower emission and higher efficiency: An integrated process of coal gasification and coking to methanol production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 304-318.
    19. Huang, Yi & Yi, Qun & Kang, Jing-Xian & Zhang, Ya-Gang & Li, Wen-Ying & Feng, Jie & Xie, Ke-Chang, 2019. "Investigation and optimization analysis on deployment of China coal chemical industry under carbon emission constraints," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    20. Wang, Junqi & Cao, Hongjun, 2022. "Improving competitive strategic decisions of Chinese coal companies toward green transformation: A hybrid multi-criteria decision-making model," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    21. Silva, Jordana Ferreira da & Silva, Fernanda Faria & Leal, Alan Marques Miranda & Oliveira, Héder Carlos de, 2021. "Regional economic resilience and mining in the State of Minas Gerais/Brazil: The barriers of productive specialisation to formal employment and tax management," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    22. Chen, Yan, 2021. "Evaluating the influence of energy prices on tight oil supply with implications on the impacts of COVID-19," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    23. Li, Junjie & Cheng, Wanjing, 2020. "Comparison of life-cycle energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic costs of coal to ethanol and bioethanol," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    24. Adefarati, T. & Bansal, R.C., 2019. "Reliability, economic and environmental analysis of a microgrid system in the presence of renewable energy resources," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 1089-1114.
    25. Chen, Bokun & Yang, Siyu & Cao, Qi & Qian, Yu, 2020. "Life cycle economic assessment of coal chemical wastewater treatment facing the ‘Zero liquid discharge’ industrial water policies in China: Discharge or reuse?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    26. Scarcioffolo, Alexandre R. & Etienne, Xiaoli, 2021. "Testing directional predictability between energy prices: A quantile-based analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    27. Liang Jing & Hassan M. El-Houjeiri & Jean-Christophe Monfort & Adam R. Brandt & Mohammad S. Masnadi & Deborah Gordon & Joule A. Bergerson, 2020. "Carbon intensity of global crude oil refining and mitigation potential," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 10(6), pages 526-532, June.
    28. Jianchao, Hou & Zhiwei, Wang & Liu, Pingkuo, 2022. "Current practice and future projection for coal-to-SNG in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Li, Junjie, 2024. "Spatialized carbon-energy-water footprint of emerging coal chemical industry in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PA).
    2. Liu, Huan & Guo, Wei & Liu, Shuqin, 2022. "Comparative techno-economic performance analysis of underground coal gasification and surface coal gasification based coal-to-hydrogen process," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Junjie, 2024. "Spatialized carbon-energy-water footprint of emerging coal chemical industry in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PA).
    2. Li, Junjie & Cheng, Wanjing, 2020. "Comparison of life-cycle energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic costs of coal to ethanol and bioethanol," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    3. Li, Junjie & Zhang, Yueling & Yang, Yanli & Zhang, Xiaomei & Wang, Nana & Zheng, Yonghong & Tian, Yajun & Xie, Kechang, 2022. "Life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis of ethanol production via coal and its competitors: A comparative study," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    4. Zhang, Yueling & Li, Junjie & Yang, Xiaoxiao, 2021. "Comprehensive competitiveness assessment of four coal-to-liquid routes and conventional oil refining route in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    5. Jin, Haifeng, 2023. "Analyzing factors and resource policymaking options for sustainable resource management and carbon neutrality in mining industry: Empirical study in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(PB).
    6. Shi, Jingxin & Huang, Wenping & Han, Hongjun & Xu, Chunyan, 2021. "Pollution control of wastewater from the coal chemical industry in China: Environmental management policy and technical standards," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    7. Wenming Wang & Yang Zhao & Yichi Ma & Chunying Guo & Jianli Jia, 2023. "An Assessment Framework for Human Health Risk from Heavy Metals in Coal Chemical Industry Soils in Northwest China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-13, October.
    8. Ding, Bingqing & Makowski, Marek & Nahorski, Zbigniew & Ren, Hongtao & Ma, Tieju, 2022. "Optimizing the technology pathway of China's liquid fuel production considering uncertain oil prices: A robust programming model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    9. Liu, Jing-Yue & Zhang, Yue-Jun, 2021. "Has carbon emissions trading system promoted non-fossil energy development in China?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    10. Meng Jiang & Yuheng Cao & Changgong Liu & Dingjiang Chen & Wenji Zhou & Qian Wen & Hejiang Yu & Jian Jiang & Yucheng Ren & Shanying Hu & Edgar Hertwich & Bing Zhu, 2024. "Tracing fossil-based plastics, chemicals and fertilizers production in China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    11. Huang, Yi & Yi, Qun & Kang, Jing-Xian & Zhang, Ya-Gang & Li, Wen-Ying & Feng, Jie & Xie, Ke-Chang, 2019. "Investigation and optimization analysis on deployment of China coal chemical industry under carbon emission constraints," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    12. Yang, Qingchun & Yang, Qing & Xu, Simin & Zhang, Dawei & Liu, Chengling & Zhou, Huairong, 2021. "Optimal design, exergy and economic analyses of coal-to-ethylene glycol process coupling different shale gas reforming technologies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    13. Zhu, Guangyan & Tian, Yajun & Liu, Min & Zhao, Yating & Wang, Wen & Wang, Minghua & Li, Quansheng & Xie, Kechang, 2023. "Comprehensive competitiveness assessment of ammonia-hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles and their competitive routes," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    14. Zhao, Mingxuan & Lv, Lianhong & Wu, Jing & Wang, Shen & Zhang, Nan & Bai, Zihan & Luo, Hong, 2022. "Total factor productivity of high coal-consuming industries and provincial coal consumption: Based on the dynamic spatial Durbin model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    15. Li, Yilin & Chen, Bin & Li, Chaohui & Li, Zhi & Chen, Guoqian, 2020. "Energy perspective of Sino-US trade imbalance in global supply chains," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    16. Putna, Ondřej & Janošťák, František & Šomplák, Radovan & Pavlas, Martin, 2018. "Demand modelling in district heating systems within the conceptual design of a waste-to-energy plant," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 1125-1139.
    17. Endl, Andreas & Tost, Michael & Hitch, Michael & Moser, Peter & Feiel, Susanne, 2021. "Europe's mining innovation trends and their contribution to the sustainable development goals: Blind spots and strong points," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    18. Xu, Jiuping & Shu, Kejing & Wang, Fengjuan & Yang, Guocan, 2024. "Bi-level multi-objective distribution strategy integrating the permit trading scheme towards coal production capacity layout optimization: Case study from China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    19. Tan, Xiujie & Sun, Qian & Wang, Meiji & Se Cheong, Tsun & Yan Shum, Wai & Huang, Jinpeng, 2022. "Assessing the effects of emissions trading systems on energy consumption and energy mix," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).
    20. Stephany Isabel Vallarta-Serrano & Ana Bricia Galindo-Muro & Riccardo Cespi & Rogelio Bustamante-Bello, 2023. "Analysis of GHG Emission from Cargo Vehicles in Megacities: The Case of the Metropolitan Zone of the Valley of Mexico," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-19, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:77:y:2022:i:c:s0301420722000782. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30467 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.