Energy greening determines carbon emissions in the upstream manufacturing end of the car and in the field of road transportation, and the three parties must work together in an all-round way to promote the realization of the dual carbon target.
Text | Du Qiaomei
In the past two years, the topic of green and low-carbon has not decreased.
Since the mainland put forward the goal of "2030 carbon peak and 2060 carbon neutrality" in 2020, "double carbon" has been written into the government work report for two consecutive years. In this year's government work report, in addition to the expected targets of "energy intensity targets are assessed in an overall manner during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, and have appropriate flexibility, and new renewable energy and raw material energy use are not included in the total energy consumption control", it also proposes to orderly promote carbon peak carbon neutrality and implement a number of specific work requirements of the carbon peak action plan.
The government work report pointed out: promote the energy revolution, ensure energy supply, based on resource endowments, adhere to the first to break, overall planning, and promote low-carbon energy transformation. Strengthen the clean and efficient utilization of coal, orderly reduce the amount of substitution, and promote the transformation of coal power energy conservation and carbon reduction, flexibility transformation, and heat supply transformation。 Promote the planning and construction of large-scale wind and photovoltaic bases and their supporting regulatory power sources, and improve the power grid's ability to absorb renewable energy power generation。 Promote the research and development and promotion and application of green and low-carbon technologies, build a green manufacturing and service system, and promote energy conservation and carbon reduction in steel, nonferrous metals, petrochemicals, chemicals, building materials and other industries. Resolutely curb the blind development of projects with high energy consumption, high emissions and low levels. Promote the transformation of "double control" of energy consumption to "double control" of total carbon emissions and intensity, improve the incentive and constraint policies for pollution reduction and carbon reduction, and accelerate the formation of a green production and lifestyle.
It is worth noting that although the government work report does not mention energy conservation and carbon reduction in the transportation sector, as the third largest source of carbon emissions after industry and buildings, carbon emission reduction in the transportation sector has a long way to go.
"In 2020, the carbon emissions in the mainland transportation sector will be 930 million tons, accounting for 15% of the country's terminal carbon emissions. In the entire transportation sector, road traffic carbon emissions account for 90%, of which road passenger transport accounts for 42%, where 90% comes from passenger cars; road freight accounts for 45%, mainly from freight trucks; other means of transport emissions are relatively small, such as aviation, ships account for about 6%, railways about 1%. Wang Hewu, deputy secretary-general of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, said that the transportation sector is highly dependent on the combustion of fossil fuels in mobile terminals, resulting in a large carbon dioxide emission base and difficulties in reducing emissions.
Transportation, automobiles and energy have always formed a carbon chain that supports and constrains each other – transportation demand affects car ownership and energy consumption in the transportation sector, thereby affecting carbon emissions; the energy consumption structure and energy consumption level of the vehicle terminal in turn affect the carbon emissions of the energy and transportation sectors.
Therefore, how to accelerate the structural adjustment of the automobile industry, energy and transportation, and promote the synergy between new energy, intelligence and energy cleanliness and carbon reduction of vehicles will be an important task to solve the problems of environmental pollution and climate change.
Increase the proportion of green energy used
At this stage, one of the effective measures recognized by the industry to reduce the carbon of the automobile industry is to increase the substitution effect of new energy vehicles on traditional fuel vehicles, which can effectively improve the carbon emissions of automobile use. Relevant data show that compared with fuel vehicles, new energy passenger cars reduce carbon emissions by about 15 million tons per year during the use phase.
At present, the mainland has formed a new energy vehicle development route with pure electric vehicles as the mainstay and hybrid vehicles as the supplement. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Public Security, by the end of 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in the country has reached 7.84 million, of which the number of pure electric vehicles is 6.4 million, accounting for 81.63% of the total number of new energy vehicles.
However, since a large proportion of the electricity currently used in the mainland comes from thermal power, this has caused the carbon emission focus of electric vehicles to shift to battery production and power supply.
It is understood that in the energy-using structure of automobile manufacturing, electric energy consumption accounts for more than 60%, especially the baking, drying, capacity-sharing and other aspects of power battery manufacturing have huge power consumption, and the degree of power cleanliness is crucial to carbon reduction at the manufacturing end.
"Energy greening determines carbon emissions in the upstream manufacturing end of the car and in the field of road transportation, and the three parties must work together in an all-round way to promote the realization of the double carbon target." Wang Hewu pointed out that based on the greening of energy supply, low-carbon automobile manufacturing has been realized. Factories can increase the proportion of green energy use by building their own photovoltaic wind power systems internally and purchasing green electricity from outside.
In fact, as early as October 2021, the State Council issued the "Opinions on The Complete, Accurate and Comprehensive Implementation of the New Development Concept to Achieve Carbon Peak carbon neutrality", which pointed out that it is necessary to accelerate the construction of a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system, actively develop non-fossil energy, and greatly improve energy utilization efficiency. At the same time, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of a low-carbon transportation system, promote energy-saving and low-carbon vehicles, and actively guide low-carbon travel.
From the perspective of the industry, carbon reduction is not only reflected in whether the cars produced are zero emissions, but also in the supply side of raw materials, the production side and the entire process of after-sales service. For example, in the research and development stage, increase modular design, reduce carbon emissions in the dismantling and recycling stages, and at the same time, in the production process, with green, environmentally friendly renewable materials, carbon reduction actions, and in the face of upstream and downstream suppliers, OEMs can also add more carbon emission target requirements to promote more carbon reduction in the parts manufacturing process.
From a global perspective, multinational companies such as Daimler, Volkswagen, BMW, Volvo, GM, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, and Bosch have put forward their own carbon neutrality goals and focused on carbon emission reduction in production, sales, and use. Among them, the Volkswagen MEB factory has reduced energy consumption by 70% and waste recovery by 5 key environmental indicators such as energy, water, carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds and waste through 27 environmental protection and energy-saving technologies such as photovoltaics, combined heat and power generation, and waste recovery; and tesla 4680 battery cell production line can also reduce energy consumption by 70% and waste recovery rate by 96%.
In China, the BMW Group's manufacturing plants in China are planning to reduce emissions by 80% in production and 40% in vehicle use by 2030 through measures such as raw material procurement, supply chain, production, use and even recycling.
Great Wall Motors also released a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045 last year. At the manufacturing end, Great Wall Motors will establish The first zero-carbon factory of Great Wall Motors in 2023 through the adjustment of energy structure and the application of low-carbon processes, and establish a recycling system of the automotive industry chain around the whole life cycle of carbon emissions.
Promote the construction of an automotive carbon trading system
However, compared with the carbon emissions of new energy vehicle manufacturing links, the carbon reduction task of new energy vehicles in the use of new energy vehicles is more arduous.
A few days ago, Zhu Tong, director and associate researcher of the Energy Economy Office of the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with the think tank Jun that from the perspective of the whole life cycle of the car, the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the car in the manufacturing process are not high, and the energy consumption in the transportation field mainly comes from the gasoline consumption in the use of the car.
Data show that in the current context of the mainstream of fuel vehicle manufacturing, the carbon emissions generated by the upstream raw material procurement and production and manufacturing links of automobile enterprises account for only about 7% of the carbon emissions of the whole life cycle of automobiles, and the carbon emissions generated by the use links (fuel use, exhaust emissions and maintenance) are as high as 93%.
"Therefore, carbon emissions in the field of automobiles and transportation involve two links, one is the manufacturing link, the other is the use link, and the real energy consumption comes from the use of fuel vehicles." Zhu Tong further pointed out that since there is currently no clear policy for personal carbon emission reduction trading, for carbon reduction in the use of automobiles, the automotive field adopts a "double integral" policy, which restricts the carbon emissions of major car companies through average fuel consumption credits and new energy vehicle credits, and encourages automobile manufacturers to produce more new energy vehicles to achieve low carbon consumption in consumer use.
In order to guide the enthusiasm of car manufacturers in carbon reduction actions, Shen Hui, founder, chairman and CEO of WM Motor, suggested promoting the approval and incentive of carbon reduction credit trading standards in the domestic new energy vehicle market. On the one hand, it can effectively drive the full-link carbon reduction action of enterprises in the process of research and development and manufacturing, retail circulation, etc., and promote industrial upgrading. On the other hand, after the subsidy decline and cancellation, the carbon reduction benefits will also reduce the R&D and manufacturing costs of enterprises, indirectly reduce the market price of new energy vehicles, reduce the purchase cost of consumers, accelerate the popularization of new energy vehicles, and help green travel and green transportation actions.
At the same time, with the further introduction of measures to implement the "double carbon" target, some insiders believe that China needs to build a carbon trading market in line with national conditions for the automotive industry as soon as possible, gradually establish a carbon trading mechanism, replace subsidies in the form of "carbon reduction incentives", encourage users to participate in low-carbon travel, promote the overall carbon emissions of the industry, and achieve industrial structure upgrading.
On the one hand, it is necessary to establish detailed rules and regulations and legal supervision to build a fair, fair and open price system; on the other hand, starting from the perspective of industrial development itself, promote the landing of double carbon from the perspective of the whole life cycle of vehicles and timely introduce user incentive policies for using low-carbon or zero-emission vehicles to travel, and encourage everyone to join green travel with carbon footprint and carbon behavior.
The carbon footprint, also known as "carbon consumption," refers to the collection of greenhouse gas emissions caused by a business organization, activity, product, or individual. In the case of automotive products, for example, the carbon footprint includes carbon dioxide emissions throughout the life cycle of the vehicle, starting from the extraction of the vehicle's raw materials (including all the metals, plastics, glass and other materials used to manufacture, drive and dispose of the car).
"A complete, clear and accurate carbon footprint accounting system is the premise and foundation for the low-carbon development of the new energy automobile industry. However, as of now, the mainland has not yet formed a systematic carbon footprint policy management system in the field of new energy vehicles, and has issued 3 batches of 24 industry accounting methods, but it has not yet covered the entire industrial chain of new energy vehicles. During the two sessions this year, Lei Jun, a deputy to the National People's Congress and the founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, pointed out in the "Proposal on Building a Carbon Footprint Accounting System for New Energy Vehicles" that the mainland urgently needs to establish and improve the carbon footprint accounting system, support the accurate management, accounting, certification and verification of carbon footprints, and help the realization of the "double carbon" goal of the mainland new energy automobile industry.
In this regard, Lei Jun put forward four suggestions: establish a systematic carbon footprint management system to guide the low-carbon development of the new energy automobile industry as a whole; formulate carbon footprint accounting standards and methods for the whole industry chain of new energy vehicles; establish a new energy vehicle carbon footprint industry data platform; and improve the carbon footprint certification, rating and incentive mechanism.
In addition to the representatives of vehicle companies, in the field of industrial chain, Zeng Yuqun, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the Ningde Times, also suggested accelerating the study of battery carbon footprint and scientifically and reasonably accounting for carbon emissions.