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Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is a gas injection technology that enables the storage of CO2 underground. The aims are twofold, on one hand to reduce the emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere and on the other hand to increase oil/gas/heat recovery. Different types of CCUS technologies and related engineering projects have a long history of research and operation in the USA. However, in China they have a short development period ca. 10 years. Unlike CO2 capture and CO2-EOR technologies that are already operating on a commercial scale in China, research into other CCUS technologies is still in its infancy or at the pilot-scale. This paper first reviews the status and development of the different types of CCUS technologies and related engineering projects worldwide. Then it focuses on their developments in China in the last decade. The main research projects, international cooperation, and pilot-scale engineering projects in China are summarized and compared. Finally, the paper examines the challenges and prospects to be experienced through the industrialization of CCUS engineering projects in China. It can be concluded that the CCUS technologies have still large potential in China. It can only be unlocked by overcoming the technical and social challenges.

The new GHG calculator named SECTOR (Source-selective and Emission-adjusted GHG CalculaTOR for Cropland) is based on the IPCC Tier 2 approach for rice as well as other crops. The new features of SECTOR facilitate high flexibility in terms of entering newly obtained emission factors, easy data transfer from crop statistics for entering activity data and detailed specifications of GHG scenarios. A new procedure of entering frequency-based data on current water management practices was also developed. Moreover, the tool allows deviating from the 2006 IPCC Guidelines by considering field records with high background levels of N₂O emissions in the overall assessment of GHG emissions. This article assesses different applications of the tool, namely as add-ons to field measurements, for GHG calculation at national/sectorial scale and within measurement, reporting and verification of development projects. SECTOR is downloadable in the form of templates that can be used to develop custom versions with varying levels of disaggregated data entries at different scales. A case study for rice production in one Vietnamese province demonstrates the potential to display GHG results in combination with GIS. SECTOR can easily be adjusted to incorporate new emission factors and calculation procedures expected in forthcoming revisions of the IPCC Guidelines.

River deltas and estuaries are disproportionally-significant coastal landforms that are inhabited by nearly 600 M people globally. In recent history, rapid socio-economic development has dramatically changed many of the World's mega deltas, which have typically undergone agricultural intensification and expansion, land-use change, urbanization, water resources engineering and exploitation of natural resources. As a result, mega deltas have evolved into complex and potentially vulnerable socio-ecological systems with unique threats and coping capabilities. The goal of this research was to establish a holistic understanding of threats, resilience, and adaptation for four mega deltas of variable geography and levels of socio-economic development, namely the Mekong, Yellow River, Yangtze, and Rhine deltas. Compiling this kind of information is critical for managing and developing these complex coastal areas sustainably but is typically hindered by a lack of consistent quantitative data across the ecological, social and economic sectors. To overcome this limitation, we adopted a qualitative approach, where delta characteristics across all sectors were assessed through systematic expert surveys. This approach enabled us to generate a comparative assessment of threats, resilience, and resilience-strengthening adaptation across the four deltas. Our assessment provides novel insights into the various components that dominate the overall risk situation in each delta and, for the first time, illustrates how each of these components differ across the four mega deltas. As such, our findings can guide a more detailed, sector specific, risk assessment or assist in better targeting the implementation of risk mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Urban population growth has permanently increased the commodity demands and freight flow within urban areas. The retail/postal industry is intent on finding appropriate internal approaches and a new business model to respond to the adverse impacts generated by urban freight activities. Usage of emerging transport modes is an efficient solution for these industries. Nevertheless, considerable research has paid less attention to the implementation status of distribution innovations, as well as to their suitability and application restrictions. Concurrently, a comprehensive consideration of various distribution innovations that operate together as a system is lacking. To this end, this paper adopted a literature review method and GE multifactorial analysis. Specifically, this paper reviewed the related articles that were published in the past six years (2013–2018) to define the concept of distribution innovations. In addition, we adopted the approach of GE multifactorial analysis to analyze the application status of distribution innovations from the perspective of academic research and company implementation. Following the suitability assessment and application of restriction analysis, we proposed the concept of sustainable inner-urban intermodal transport (SIUIT) for the retail/postal industry. This paper contributes to the sustainable urban freight literature by exploring possible future research directions of SIUIT.

Voluntary environmental management programs for firms have become an increasingly popular instrument of environmental policy. However, the literature’s conclusion on the effectiveness of suchprograms is ambiguous, and for the European region there is a lack of evidence based on a large control group. We seek to fill this gap with an evaluation of the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), introduced in 1995 by the European Union as a premium certification of continuous pro-environmental efforts above regulatory minimum standards. It is more demanding than other voluntary programsdue to annual public reports of the environmental performance and targets for improvements. We use official firm-level production census data on the German manufacturing sector, a major energy consumer and emitter in Europe. To account for the self-selection of firms, we combine the Coarsened Exact Matching approach with a Difference-in-Differences estimation. Our results do not suggest reductions of firms’ CO2 intensity and energy intensity neither before nor after certification. Moreover, program participants do not increase renewable energy consumption or investments into the protection of the environment and climate. Our results are robust to a variety of checks and call into question the effectiveness of the EMAS program concerning these particular outcome variables.

Abstract In many cases, hazardous wastes are subject to thermal treatment at elevated temperatures. Some types of wastes do not have a sufficient calorific value to cover the heat demand of the high temperature process. For thermal treatment of e.g. filter residues, dusts, sulfuric acid, aluminium dross, foundry sand, or waste water, supplementary energy supply is needed. The specific energy demand ranges from 0.5 to 2.5 kWh/kg (2–10 MJ/kg). An important aim of process optimisation is the reduction of (fossil) energy consumption and exhaust gas flow. Concentrated solar energy promises advantages when applied to high energy consuming waste treatment processes with regard to substitute fossil or electric energy consumption, to reduce CO2 emissions, and exhaust gas flow. In parallel to conceptional studies, a solar-heated rotary kiln mini-plant has been designed and constructed for tests in the DLR solar furnace. The tests will give indications of boundary conditions for solar thermal treatment or conversion of selected hazardous materials.

This paper explores the ability of European refineries to pass-through costs associated with the introduction of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). We estimated a sequence of vector error correction models (VECM) within a multi-national setting which covers 14 EU member states. Using weekly data at the country level, this paper finds a significant influence of prices for European Union Allowances (EUAs) on unleaded petrol retail prices during the trial phase of the EU ETS from 2005 to 2007. Petrol prices are found to be elastic with respect to crude oil prices and exchange rates but rather inelastic with respect to carbon costs. The long-run elasticity of petrol prices with respect to the EUA prices typically ranges between 0.01% and 0.09%. Furthermore, by computing the variance decomposition our analysis shows that a significant fraction of petrol price changes in Austria, Germany, France and Spain can be explained by changes in allowances prices (between 10% and 20%).