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I just published a 6-month investigation along with @lili_pike and @NorthropKatrina on 11 chemical plants in China that have annual greenhouse gas emissions likely equal to that of 25 million cars. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04082020/china-n2o-super-pollutant-nylon-emissions-climate-change Here’s how this @insideclimate investigation came to be. 1
Earlier this year I wrote about a chemical plant in northern Florida that is the largest concentrated source of nitrous oxide emissions in the nation. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23032020/plant-florida-emits-vast-quantities-greenhouse-gas-nearly-300-times-more-potent-carbon 2.
The plant makes adipic acid, a key ingredient in nylon and polyurethane, chemicals used in everything from car parts to tennis shoes. The plant also emits thousands of tons of nitrous oxide, a climate #superpollutant, nearly 300 x more potent than carbon dioxide. 3.
The plant in Florida destroys 75 percent of its nitrous oxide emissions but the remaining pollution still equals the greenhouse gas emissions of 2 million automobiles. 4.
Nearly half of the world’s adipic acid is now produced by 11 plants in China. I wanted to know how much nitrous oxide those plants emit. Turns out I wasn’t alone. 5.
Climate scientists are acutely aware of the potential harm caused by nitrous oxide emissions from adipic acid plants but they view production facilities in China as a black box. “I am a scientist and not a detective” one of them told me when I asked about the plants’ emissions 6.
In the early 2000s, two adipic acid plants in China were part of a U.N.-led emissions reduction program. The plants earned more than $1 billion for themselves and China in carbon credits after licensing low-cost Western technology that brought their emissions to near zero. 7.
In 2013, the carbon credit money dried up. No one could tell us what happened next. To find out, we spent months reaching out to anyone we could find who might have first-hand knowledge of plant operations. 8.
. @lili_pike and @NorthropKatrina called the plants, officials and academics in China. I reached out to international experts, market research firms, abatement catalyst suppliers, and a retired engineer who helped install one of the devices 9.
Together we read through hundreds of pages of documents from the Chinese government, the United Nations, Chinese state media, and state-owned company shareholder reports 10.
Our investigation strongly suggests that when funding for the U.N. program ended, so too did nearly all of the emissions reductions. This likely occurred despite the availability of proven, low-cost abatement technology. 11.
A lack of government regulation is “the key problem,” an industry expert who has worked in the Chinese adipic acid industry for 30 years told us. “If the Chinese government takes something seriously, then the government will definitely solve it.” 12.
If China does regulate N2O and other climate #superpollutants, they could quickly reduce these greenhouse gas emissions at little cost. “We think non-CO2 emissions reductions are a good opportunity for China to demonstrate momentum” @WRIClimate’s Ranping Song told us. 13.
