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BEST AVAILABLE TECHNIQUES, ENERGY EFFICIENCY ENHANCEMENT AND CARBON EMISSIONS REDUCTION

Tatiana Guseva

Abstract

Two well-known regulatory constructions ? technological regulation based on Best Available Techniques (BAT) and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions regulation ? aim at cleaning and greening industrial production. BAT-related legislation and practices have been applied in the UK and Sweden for over 30 years, while European Parliament passed the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive in 1996. In Russia, the ?BAT Law? was issued in 2014, and in 2019 first IPPC installations will receive Integrated Environmental Permits (IEPs). BAT-related regulatory constructions tackle ?ordinary? pollutants and first of all require that IPPC installations implement pollution prevention and (or) control techniques, achieve high resource and energy efficiency (EE), avoid (or minimise) the use of hazardous substances and consider recycling while operating production processes. Different policies and regulatory constructions with their main purpose to slow the growth of GHG emissions have been in existence for 25 years. The focus of climate change policy expanded to include more sectors of the economy. In industry, there are two key areas of GHG emissions: firstly, emissions from energy use; and secondly, emissions from technological processes. Industrial ?process emissions? generally account for 3-8% of total GHG emissions although they can be very important in individual industry sectors, such as cement and aluminium production. Sector-related targets should be set considering opportunities to reduce both ?energy? and ?process? emissions. The most rapid GHG emission reduction trends in industry over the 90s were due to technology development, e.g. the ability to cost-effectively reduce N2O emissions from adipic acid production or to substitute HFCs by other refrigerants. International criteria for selecting BATs also open opportunities for high production EE and secondary use of materials, which in turn may lead to the reduction of GHG emissions. GHGs are discussed in the Reference Documents on Best Available Techniques (BREFs) though BAT-associated emission levels (BAT-AELs) are never set for them. Many countries have initiated policies to limit or reduce GHG emissions from the industrial sector. For example, the UK and EU emission trading schemes (ETS) are operated by putting a limit on overall emissions from covered installations which is reduced each year. Within this limit, companies can buy and sell emission allowances as needed. Similar approaches may be introduced in Russia in the near future. This ?cap-and-trade? approach gives companies the flexibility they need to cut their emissions in the most cost-effective way. It is underlined that two permitting systems ? the first, based on the IEPs and BATs, and the second, allowing emissions of GHGs should operate independently from each other. At the same time, instruments forming incentives for the implementation of BATs, EE enhancement and recycling of various materials may and ought to provide for reducing GHG emissions in industry.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/5.1/s20.008

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