IEA report: Tracking Clean Energy Progress in Chemicals and petrochemicals sector

The International Energy Agency (IEA) published an excerpt of the Energy Technology Perspectives 2017 and launched in June a new website both entitled “Tracking Clean Energy Progress”. They analyses the progress made by 38 clean technologies and sectors including chemicals and petrochemicals in reaching sustainable goals. The study shows that only 4 out of 38 energy technologies and sectors were on track to meet long-term climate and energy targets in 2017. The chemical sector is labelled as needing to make more efforts.

The chemicals and petrochemicals sector remains the largest industrial energy user, accounting for 28% of industrial final energy consumption in 2014. To keep on track of the IEA 2°C scenario, the sector’s annual increases in CO₂ emissions must remain below 3.6% between 2014 and 2025, although demand for primary chemicals is expected to increase by 47%. The website earmarks a range of innovative technologies that could help the chemical sector meet its clean energy transition goals (e.g. ethylene production from electricity and CO2 or aromatics production from biomass gasification).

The study shows that most of the CO₂ savings by 2025 will be achieved thanks to improvements in process energy efficiency (78%), while the rest will be met by switching to alternative feedstocks (18%) or increasing plastics recycling (5%).

For further information, please visit the IEA website.