A NUMERICAL EVALUATION of WORLDWIDE and TURKEY CO2
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A NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF WORLDWIDE CO2 EMISSIONS BASED ON FOSSIL FUELS AND EFECTS ON ATMOSPHERIC WARMING IN TURKEY Dr. Nuray TOKGÖZ Istanbul University, Faculty of Engineering Mining Engineering Department 34320 Avcılar /Istanbul / TURKEY ABSTRACT The climate system of the earth, globally and locally, obviously has been changed from pre- industrial period to present. Some of the changes are due to human activities where the vital role has been played by the emission. Fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, oil), the raw materials for energy, play an effective and determining role in the development and sustenance of industrial development, as well as in the energy planning in all major countries. When global and regional geographies are evaluated from the geo-strategic and geo-political points of view, it is clearly seen that among all fossil fuels, coal is distributed more “equally” in ratio than oil and natural gas reserves. Coal is gradually gaining importance for countries that do not have energy resources, have limited ones, or have resources on the verge of exhaustion. With the latest environmentally-friendly technological innovations in the field of burning-storing CO2 emissions in thermal power plants and given today’s emphasis on the principle of “sustainable development,” it is an undeniable fact that coal will continue to be a significant primary energy resource in the future, both in Turkey and around the world. In this study, in order to numerically calculate the impact of CO2 from fossil fuel consumption on global warming and the process of climate change, a global scale numerical evaluation has been constructed. The evaluation utilizes the “total primary energy supply (TPES)”-“CO2 emission” from 136 countries in 2004 together with such basic indicators as “TPES/capita” and “ton CO2/capita”. The potential CO2 emission for the year 2030 has also been estimated. Moreover, to maintain the integrity of the subject under study, the distribution of thermal power plants utilizing fossil fuels among the differing geographical regions of Turkey, the relationship between forests (F) in these regions, and the average annual increase in temperature (∆T) between 1975-92 and 1993-2006 have also been examined. Data was taken from 133 macro-climatic meteorological stations within the scope of this study. Keywords: CO2 emission, Fossil fuels, Electricity generation, Atmospheric warming 1. INTRODUCTION Energy has been vitally important for the development of the societies throughout the history. Today, per capita of national income and energy consumption levels present tremendous differences between developed and developing countries. A country should be “developed” in order to sustain its social and economic development. In other words, dealing with the sustainability of development cannot be regarded as a realistic approach for an underdeveloped society. However, besides the fact that development cannot be sustained if the environmental problems are ignored, it should be born in mind that economically weak countries do not have sufficient sources to bear the expenses of environmental protection. The most important reason of the global warming which has considerably been increasing in the last century and the disasters related to it is the very significant increase in the emission rates of the greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere which have occurred as a result of activities of humans after the industrialization. The warming in atmosphere and green-house effect is due to the increase in six main GHG, which are CO2, CH4 (methane), N2O (nitrous oxide), HFC (hydrofluorocarbon), PFC (perflourocarbon), and SF6 (sulfur hexafluoride). The most significant of them is CO2 gas with an emission share of 80-82% within the total amount of greenhouse gas. Emission of CO2 gas is mainly caused by the usage of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal) which are used in every sector of industry and economy. Therefore, energy policies directly affect the emissions of greenhouse gases. According to the data from IPCC, within the last century the global surface temperature has increased by 0.6 °C on average. According to the data from World Meteorological Organization, the hottest two years of the last 150 years are 1998 and 2002.( IPCC, 2005). It is envisaged that from 1990 to 2100 the average increase in the global surface temperature will be 1.4-5.8 °C. Atmospheric CO2 reaching from 280 ppm to 360 ppm causes a 1.4°C increase in temperature. This is due to the reflective action of CO2 and SO2 on the light beams emitted from the ground at 1.10-1.63 μm wavelength back to the earth. Meanwhile, CH4 reflects 0.70-0.85μm wavelength red and infrared beams; however, CH4 has a much shorter half-life (11 years) and has less atmospheric concentration (1.65 ppm) (Kantarcı 2006). Knowledge of past CO2 levels and associated paleoenvironmental and paleoecological changes is useful for prediction future consequences of the current increase in atmospheric CO2 (Ghosh P, et.all, 2005). As a result of this climate change, it is suggested that in the forthcoming years excessive droughts will occur in some regions of the world whereas flood disasters will occur in others. Disasters such as hurricanes, floods or excessive droughts that will occur as a result of the climate change also threaten both biological diversity and the future of animal species. Based on these aspects; to provide numerical information on worldwide, CO2 emission trends were analyzed according to intensity of power plants stationary during 1971-2004 periods. Main energy indicators defined as “Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES)”, “ton CO2/capita” were calculated for total 136 world countries. General outlook for the emission of Turkey that effected on its warming was researched in this study as well. 2. WORLDWIDE CO2 EMISSION TRENDS BASED ON FOSSIL FUELS To provide numerical information on CO2 emission resulting from the burning of fossil fuels, 136 countries were analyzed according to the following main energy indicators: “reserves and its dynamic life,” “Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES),” “ton CO2/capita,” efficiency of power plants, and electricity generation trends (Figures 1 and 2). Data were analyzed based on the period from 1971-2004 in order to determine past and future trends of world CO2 emission. When Figures 1, 2 and 3 are carefully examined together, some important evaluations can be produced • World CO2 emission caused by fossil fuel combustion grew from 24.98 Gt in 2003 to 26.58 Gt in 2004, an increase of 6.4 % (1.6 Gt). The world CO2 increase in 2004 is 28% compared to 1990. • It is reported that total 7887 industrial CO2 sources have produced 13 466 Mt CO2 in a year. (IEA, 2000; IPCC, 2005). Globally, emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel use in the year 2004 totalled about 26.58 Gt. Of this, close to 51% was attributed to large (> 0.1 Mt CO2/year, stationary emission sources (see in Figure 1). • Fossil fuel based-industrial source of CO2 emission was produced by power sector as 10539 Mt/year (63 %, 4942) (IPCC, 2005). It is followed by cement production % 15 (1175), refineries % 8.1 (638), petrochemical industry % 6 (478), Biomass % 3.9 (330), Iron and steel industry % 3.4 (270), and other sources 0.6 % ( 90). It clearly seems that large amount of CO2 have been emitted by power sector. If the sources evaluate according to distributed throughout the world, the database shows four main clusters of emissions: North America (midwest and eastern USA), Europe (northwest region), East Asia (eastern coast of China and Japan) and South Asia (Indian subcontinent) (Figure 1). • Proven world coal reserves are currently 907 billion tones and total coal production in the world is 4.9 billion tones. Numerical evaluation shows that coal will be available for a couple of hundred years if there is no growth in the rate of production in the future (static case) for electricity generation in all regions around the world [Figure 1(a)]. • When the power plants in the world working with fossil fuels are examined according to their efficiencies (η), it is seen that they operate with an extremely low efficiency in Russia (16.7-21.2% efficient), CIS (19.4-26.0% efficient), and Central and Eastern Europe (25.5-28.0% efficient). It is known that this low efficiency is the result of the old combustion technologies used in the power plants which in turn causes increased CO2 emission together with SO2 and NO2 emissions [Figure 1(c)] (Tokgöz, 2001 and 2005). • Large fossil fuel consumer’s countries are also large amount of CO2 emitter countries such as USA: 5.8 Gt, China: 4.8 Gt, Europe: 3.5Gt, Russia: 1.5 Gt, Japan: 1.2 Gt, India 1.1 G t, in 2004 [Figure 2(a)](*). • Globally, the biggest emission of CO2 producer was USA which produced 5.8 Gt CO2 in 2004. Increasing of CO2 in 2004 was 21 % compared to 1990. • China is ranked first in the world in coal production with a 1.55% ratio of reserve usage, and it is also ranked second after the USA in CO2 emission (4.8 billion tons). The increase in the amount of CO2 emission in China in 2004 compared to 1990 has been estimated to be 112% (1.12 fold). India is also a coal-producing country and is ranked second in the world in coal production after China. The ratio of coal reserve usage in India is 0.45%. China and India are among those countries which have not signed the Kyoto Protocol [Figure 1(a) and (b)]. • The USA, which is the greatest CO2 emission producer in the world, had a per (∗) capita CO2 emission of 19.73 tones in 2004 [Figure 2(b)] . (∗) Raw data were taken from the “IEA, 2005 and 2006” references.