Bio‐ethylene from sugarcane as a competitiveness strategy for the Brazilian chemical industry

Abstract

The urgency with which the world economy needs to be decarbonized could lead to the emergence of regions with the capacity to produce renewable feedstock such as biomass. The competitiveness of these regions could result from their ability to produce high value‐added chemicals at the lowest cost. The biomass embodied in a chemical product could reduce carbon emissions, leading to net CO2 removal. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that bio‐ethylene could make the Brazilian chemical industry more competitive. This would be achieved by applying the revenues from carbon credits associated with using ethanol and sugarcane bagasse as feedstocks for bio‐ethylene production. Three production routes were compared according to their estimated cost of production in Brazil under a simplified life‐cycle analysis: sugar‐cane‐derived ethanol to ethylene (with and without CO2 capture and storage – BECCS); bio‐methanol to olefin; and conventional steam cracking of naphtha. When associated with the production of long‐lasting materials, the ethanol‐to‐ethylene with BECCS route achieved the lower CO2 break‐even price (US$75/t CO2), followed by ethanol to ethylene without BECCS (US$82/t CO2) and bio‐methanol to ethylene (US$106/t CO2). Our findings highlight the advantage for the Brazilian chemical industry of implementing a national or, even better, a global carbon‐pricing instrument. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Achieving negative emissions in plastics life cycles through the conversion of biomass feedstock

“…For this reason, the sector needs a holistic strategy to both reduce GHG emissions in energy and material flows and stop plastic pollution, especially in marine environments. Bio‐based materials, the circular economy, and product innovations are expected to play a critical role in decarbonizing the chemical sector while harnessing the many benefits of plastics 13,17–19 …”

“…estimated that bio‐based plastic could save 241 to 316 MtCO 2eq per year by substituting 65.8% of all conventional plastics. Bio‐based plastics can act as a negative emission technology (NET) depending on the plastic's final disposal 18 . (NET are defined by the 2018 IPCC special report 21 .…”

“…Actually, NETs have been widely selected by integrated assessment models (IAM) to meet the requirements of temperature limits of 1.5 °C 23–25 . Nonetheless, the scientific literature on IAMs still lacks evaluating NETs through the conversion of biomass into chemical products 18 . Exceptions are Daioglou et al ., 26–28 which include in their modeling exercise the demand from the non‐energy sector, although in an aggregate manner, for basic petrochemicals; and Lap et al 29 .…”

“…However, as plastic's low degradability could enable carbon storage for thousands of years, 35 years of carbon storage in buildings is only the worst‐case scenario. Bio‐based plastic infrastructure could therefore act as a long‐term NET, 18,30 if strong regulatory measures are taken to certificate this long‐term use. (Long‐term material application in the construction or infrastructure sectors have a useful lifetime of around 35 years 2 …”

“…Although the same may occur in single‐use applications, long‐term applications avoid both emissions from recycling or incineration and potential marine pollution due to plastic mismanagement. If bio‐based plastics are considered, the biogenic carbon absorbed during biomass cultivation and then captured in plastics could also result in negative emissions 18 . Given the urgency of dealing with plastic waste and to decarbonize the petrochemical industry, this paper investigates which plastics’ final disposal option achieves the lowest carbon footprint or even negative emissions.…”