Analysis of ten development trends of chemical industry under the background of carbon neutrality

Under the general trend of carbon neutrality, China's energy structure, industrial structure and consumption structure will undergo major regional structural changes

First of all, in order to achieve carbon neutrality, China will always adhere to the development of clean energy and green energy ideas in the next 30 years, in which solar energy will be the main energy structure of the energy industry, followed by clean energy such as wind and tidal energy. In addition, hydrogen and other energy structures will become auxiliary, and the proportion of fossil energy consumption will gradually decrease until the balance with clean energy to achieve carbon neutrality.

Secondly, under the dual-carbon trend, the proportion of energy manufacturing attributes has gradually increased, clean equipment, environmental protection and recycling industries will be favored by the market for a long time, and the proportion of industrial impact will be rapidly increased. The manufacturing of new energy vehicles is expected to continue to replace traditional fuel locomotives and drive carbon neutrality from the energy consumption market.

Finally, China's energy supply center is expected to gradually shift from the current western and central regions, such as Shanxi, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia, to the southwest and eastern China, mainly due to the shift in energy consumption structure from coal to clean energy. Brother Pingtou believes that the driving force of China's energy structure transformation comes from the consumption of new energy, and the reduction of traditional energy consumption and the growth of new energy consumption, there is a non-linear relationship and essential contradiction between the two, so it will usher in the pain of energy structure transformation in the short term in the future.

02 Carbon trading and carbon trade in the chemical industry under the trend of "double carbon" will bring a new trading system

Brother Pingtou learned that in the "13th Five-Year Plan" Work Plan for controlling Greenhouse gas emissions issued by The State Council in 2016, it is clear that the construction and operation of a national carbon emission trading market are mainly measured in three points: 1. Establish a national carbon emission trading system; 2. Launch and operate a national carbon emission trading market; 3. Strengthen the basic support capacity of national carbon emission trading.

At present, China's carbon trading market is mainly a quota system, with chemical companies selling and buying carbon emission allowances according to their own equipment. However, at present, carbon trading is only piloted in some provinces, the total amount of each pilot is relaxed, and there is a surplus of quotas in control and emission units, resulting in low carbon trading prices. Therefore, there is still a big gap between China's carbon trading market and that of developed countries in Europe and the United States.

In addition, at present, the pilot provinces of China's chemical enterprises are not willing to disclose the total amount of carbon emissions or the total amount of carbon quotas, which leads to the opacity of carbon trading information, resulting in the uncertainty of fair and reasonable market pricing for bilateral transactions, which greatly increases the transaction cost and reduces the transaction frequency. Therefore, the policy regulation of carbon trading in China's chemical industry, or the establishment of a new carbon trading platform, such as the "carbon currency" trading model, is fair, open and transparent, is expected to form a new carbon trading system, so as to help China's carbon neutral carbon trading model.

03

Large-scale, long-term energy storage is expected to drive the upgrading of the new chemical materials industry

According to the overall trend of carbon neutrality, the development of China's new energy industry is essentially the development of clean renewable energy, of which photovoltaic energy and wind energy have the greatest development compatibility, the essence of photovoltaic energy and wind energy lies in the integration model of the industrial chain of power transmission, energy storage and new energy vehicles, so energy storage is expected to be an important development direction in the future. Brother Pingtou believes that the future energy storage industry is optimistic, and the growth of energy storage scale lies in the development of new chemical materials.

Energy storage mainly refers to the storage of electric energy, mainly battery energy storage, inductor energy storage, capacitor energy storage and other ways, of which battery energy storage is an important application direction at present. Battery energy storage such as lead-acid battery energy storage, nickel-metal hydride battery energy storage, lithium-ion battery energy storage, etc., behind these batteries, is an important application of new materials in China's chemical industry.

In addition, with the development of new materials in China Chemical Industry, new types of energy storage batteries are also developing rapidly, such as sp2 hybrid carbon energy storage batteries, graphene batteries, etc., will be an important direction in the future.

Brother Pingtou summarized the current application direction of important new materials in the energy storage battery industry, such as: silicon carbon composite negative electrode materials, lithium titanate, graphene, carbon nanotubes, lithium-rich manganese based positive electrode materials, dynamic nickel-cobalt lithium manganese oxide materials, coated membranes, ceramic alumina, high-voltage electrolyte, water-based binder, etc. These materials are expected to become an important upgrading direction for energy storage batteries in the future, and also drive the development direction of the chemical industry in the field of new materials.

04 Energy saving transformation of chemical plant will be a long-term trend

Under the general trend of carbon neutrality, the energy-saving transformation of China's chemical plant production is expected to help China's chemical enterprises reduce carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality in the chemical industry. The energy saving transformation of chemical equipment is mainly reflected in the energy saving transformation of traditional industrial systems, the transformation of high energy consumption general equipment, the efficient utilization and recycling of waste heat and pressure, and the application and transformation of carbon storage and capture. The energy saving transformation of these chemical equipment will contribute greatly to the realization of carbon neutrality.

Pingtou brother believes that the energy-saving transformation of China's chemical equipment mainly reflects the following directions:

First, the systematic transformation of key chemical industries, such as the petrochemical industry to implement refining and chemical energy system optimization, light olefin raw materials, advanced coal gasification, nitric acid production technology upgrading.

Second, the transformation of high-energy-consuming equipment in the chemical industry, such as the implementation of permanent magnet synchronous servo motor, high voltage frequency conversion speed regulation and other technical transformation and device replacement. In the distribution transformer system, the implementation of amorphous alloy transformer, on-load capacity regulation and voltage regulation technology, and promote the application of new electronic devices and other information technology.

Third, upgrade the high-pressure recovery technology of waste heat in chemical plants, and implement technical transformation such as waste heat recovery and utilization of flue gas system and high-parameter integrated cycle power generation of supercritical mixed working medium in self-provided power plants.

Fourth, implement carbon capture, carbon utilization and carbon storage technologies in chemical equipment, and strengthen the application of carbon dioxide in the chemical industry in oil extraction, plastic product processing and other fields.

05 Ultra-high voltage power transmission will drive the upgrading of new chemical materials

The overall development trend of China's new energy will be the development model of the integration of the industrial chain, in which ultra-high voltage power transmission is a key link in the development of new energy in China, carrying the long-distance transportation of China's electricity and the application of new energy. In the UHV transmission link, the reduction of power transmission loss and the improvement of efficiency is an important research direction of UHV transmission, which mainly comes from the use of new materials in the UHV transmission environment.

By 2035, China's UHV lines will achieve "national coverage", China's UHV lines like capillaries all over China, at that time, China will be a new energy as the main clean energy consumption of China. The development of UHV will inevitably drive the demand for high-voltage transmission lines, and the demand for new chemical materials will also increase simultaneously. The demand for new materials for UHV transmission lines, such as products such as XLPE, will also usher in an outbreak of demand.

What is the impact of these three chess pieces laid years ago on China's energy industry? Detailed analysis of the UHV transmission situation, if necessary, you can click to browse!

06 A new round of supply-side structural reform in energy-consuming industries

In the context of carbon neutrality, the relevant energy-intensive chemical industry will face a deep supply-side structural reform, and after the production capacity reaches its peak in the short term, it is expected to bring about the integration of production capacity after the impact of carbon neutrality.

According to the relevant experience of Pingtou Brother, the chemical industry that may have the supply-side structural reform under the trend of carbon neutrality may have coal to ethylene glycol, coal to methanol, synthetic ammonia, industrial silicon, calcium carbide, caustic soda, yellow phosphorus, MTO, soda ash. Most of these industries belong to high energy consumption and power consumption industries.

Brother Pingtou believes that with the implementation of carbon neutral policies in various provinces and cities, it is expected to bring decades of development drive for the chemical industry, which has a relative development advantage.

07 Low-carbon new materials and degradable materials will benefit in the long run

For the future industry development of new chemical materials, Pingtou brother believes that it is attributable to two driving logic, one is the growth of consumer demand driven by dual-carbon policies, and the other is the policy-driven growth of low-carbon and degradable materials. Among them, low-carbon and degradable materials will be driven by policies to show explosive growth, and this trend can be seen from the rapid growth of PLA and PBAT industries under construction in the future.

The low-carbon and degradable materials mentioned here, such as PLA, PBAT, bio-based long chain dibasic acid, bio-based polyamide and other materials, are expected to have a booming development period of several decades in the future. In addition, the demand for new materials driven by new energy consumption, such as photovoltaic grade EVA, glass fiber reinforced modification, photovoltaic wind power coatings, etc., will be driven by consumption driven growth brought about by the general trend.

08 Coal chemical industry will open the process of high efficiency and low carbonization

As we all know, the coal chemical industry is a key industry under the general trend of carbon neutrality, because the coal chemical industry is an important carbon emission field of the chemical industry, and it is also a key transformation and upgrading industry in the future. Brother Pingtou believes that the future coal chemical industry will be a high-efficiency coal conversion and low-carbon production and operation industry, of which coal to gas is expected to be an important development direction.

As for the development trend of carbon neutrality in the coal chemical industry, the following development suggestions can be made. First, electrolytic hydrogen production after solar power generation can meet the demand for hydrogen in the coal chemical industry, such as coal to gas, coal to olefin, coal to methanol, etc., which can reduce the cost of hydrogen collection and reduce carbon emissions in the process of hydrogen production. The second is to improve the coal gasification process, enhance the carbon conversion rate, and reduce the coal consumption is an important direction of technical research in the coal chemical industry. Such as the use of advanced gas bed coal gasification process, the coal quality requirements are lower, higher carbon conversion rate.

Under the general trend of carbon neutrality, for the transformation of the coal chemical industry, Pingtou Brother believes that it will be the key change direction in the chemical industry, and it will also be a more in-depth reform of the industry.

09 The decarbonization of the power industry provides more abundant raw materials for coal chemical industry

Brother Pingtou learned that China's power industry is the first carbon emission of various industries, so the decarbonization of the power industry is an important reform direction to reduce carbon emissions. Regarding the decarbonization of the power sector, the important directions are photovoltaic power generation, wind power generation and other low-carbon power generation modes.

At the same time as the power industry continues to reduce its dependence on coal, the supply and application of coal in other industries is expected to increase significantly, resulting in a decline in the value of coal in the long run. Brother Pingtou believes that this will be conducive to the production of coal chemical industry with coal as raw materials, reduce the production cost of coal chemical industry, and drive the competitiveness of coal chemical production.

10. The decarbonization of maritime trade is imminent, which is good for LNG

In 2020, the global seaborne trade volume will reach 11.47 billion tons, of which the trade volume of coal will exceed 800 million tons, the trade volume of crude oil will exceed 2 billion tons, the trade volume of refined oil products will exceed 1 billion tons, the trade volume of LNG will exceed 300 million tons, and the total trade volume of energy will exceed 4 billion tons.

According to the changing trend of seaborne trade volume, the trade volume of coal, crude oil and refined oil products shows a gradual decline in the global seaborne market, excluding the factors of the decline in the overall trade volume due to the epidemic in 2020, which has a direct impact on the transformation of the energy structure brought about by the carbon neutrality of globalization. However, the volume of LNG trade is gradually increasing. Due to the low-carbon energy properties of LNG, the global consumption of LNG will gradually increase, thus driving the growth of global trade volume. Flathead believes this trend will continue in the global seaborne energy trade structure for decades to come.