Lecture 07

[Music] good afternoon everyone welcome back to the uh course on carbon credits and sustainability for product life cycle management uh as part of the Nal muks and we were studying what we in the previous lecture we call us carbon footprint and and now we are trying to take a look more into it so we defined what is carbon footprint we talked about greenhouse gases and the release of them into that environment due to the transformation process and what's the transformation process we have already seen as part of the systemic approach and there are so many greenhouse gases but for us there are six major of them they are carbon dioxide methane nitrous oxide hydrocarbon per fluorocarbon and sulfur hex fluoride now the third main question that we have is all these gases are different so how do we compare them okay this is the third question how do we compare them this six one there are people who use other gases also but for the purpose of this course we limit ourselves to the six months so for us again for this course it it is compare various ghgs greenhouse gases based on their global warming potential okay or what we call as gwp so we uses a metric or a factor called global warming potential to compare these gases okay so now how do this gases can be calculated so let's take an example a simple example so for example okay so if you burn okay so let's say one peanut sized gasoline or petrol that will usually translates to 1 G of CO2 e so it's called as carbon dioxide equivalent so we will talk about what is carbon dioxide equivalent uh in a sec in a way but what it is is that the carbon dioxide this is also known as the reference gas yes because of the warming potential gwp of one since it's a reference gas is a warming potential of one so if when you burn petrol you will get many types of gases there will be carbon dioxide there will be nitrous oxide there is sometimes methane also coming out of it so all of those gases coming out together will give enough global warming as of 1 G of carbon dioxide that is what the one panut size of gasoline is we talk about now let us talk about two cups of gasoline two cups of gasoline okay two cups or gasoline of or petrol whatever you want to call it two cups of it okay so imagine two teac cup and full of that that will give you one kilogram of CO2 e equalent so if you burn two cups of gasoline then the gases that get emitted out all of that together gives you enough warming global warming as equalent to 1 kogam of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere okay uh if you it doesn't mean that if you burn two cups of gasoline you are going to get 1 kilog of carbon dioxide it means means that the effect of all the gases the greenhouse gases that comes out after burning gasoline together gives you enough global warming as is equivalent to the 1 kg of carbon dioxide equalent that is the advantage of gwp so this comparison is based on gwp now let's talk about the third one okay so if you burn something like 60 gallons of petrol or gasoline if you do that so 60 gallons is it is equalent to 227 L okay this gallons is an American measure 227 lit okay if you burn 227 L of petrol or gasoline what do we get is we get approximately 1 ton of carbon dioxide equalent so all the gases that put together if you burn 227 l or 60 gallons of gasoline it will give enough warming as that of one ton of carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere but really that doesn't mean that one ton of carbon dioxide is there it means that the carbon dioxide the methane the nitrous oxide sulfur emissions Etc that's all coming of the tail pipe together gives you a global warming potential of one t of carbon dioxide equalent so hopefully this way so this gives you an idea of how when you burn something so this Burning is something like you're driving a car so when you're driving and if you consume 227 L of petrol then you can think about roughly that okay I have emitted one ton of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere so now how does this global warming potential is calculated is the next point that we need to consider and we will do more examples as we progress but this is the foundation of that so for us when we talk about this let us imagine that gwp is the global warming impact warming impact that a ghg would have over a 100e time frame okay so the warming potential is the warming impact that the ghd would have over a 100 Year time frame so if you take that particular gas and put it over find for 100 years then that is how much it will have an impact on the or that is the warming potential so whatever we have now uh it can actually impact it at for a if you think about that much of quantity of gas is present for a period of 100 years then the warming potential of that much of quantity of gas or a particular quantity of gas is Quantified for increasing like 1° cus or whatever the criteria that you are going to put it in so let us take these six gases so the first one is carbon dioxide okay as I mentioned earlier it is the reference gas okay and it's gwp is of one so that means there is a particular quantity of gas carbon dioxide gas that is if it is present in the atmosphere for 100 years then the warming potential of that it is one it can actually impact the temperature of the Earth by 1° can think of one not one de but you can IM imagine that it can actually do that for Simplicity now let's take what you call as methane CH4 the warming potential gwp is 24 and major source is oil drilling natural gas okay so one way to compare this is if there is one t of CO2 the same warming potential is there for 1 by 24 ton of methane so if you have one ton of carbon dioxide then 1X 24 ton of carbon dioxide me sorry not carbon dioxide methane will give you the same warming as that of one ton of carbon dioxide so you probably would now know how you can use gwb to compare them the third one is nitrous oxide n2o okay uh major source is Motor Vehicles tailpipe emissions okay tail pipes and what is the gwp of this gwp is 310 so the comparison is 1 ton of CO2 is equalent to 1x 310 ton of n2o so you require nitrous oxide in a much smaller quantity to create the same warming potential as that of the one ton of carbon dioxide then comes the fourth one hfc hydrofor carbons major source is Cooling and Refrigeration Cooling and refrigeration and the gwp okay the global warming potential of this gwp it varies from 140 to 11,700 okay so depending on the type of gas this is is a family of gases so depending upon which one that we are talking about it can vary from 140 to 11,700 so that means it has very high warming potential some of them might be having lower warming potential than nitrous oxide but some of them has very high warming potential now we have is the fifth one which is PFC per floc carbons okay so the major sources include which are the major sources one is polymer industry polymers synthetic fibers then Pharmaceuticals Etc okay now the gwp okay this is also again a family of gases so but the gwp can vary from 6,500 to 9,200 it's again family of gases so this is much more dangerous obviously you can see that these numbers are very very large compared to all of the gases that we have discussed so far except that some of the the hfc's might have a number larger than this but mostly as a family this is much more dangerous then comes the last one sf6 sf6 that is called as the what we sulfur hex suur right the major sources are include insulation glazed Windows tempered glass all those kind of things okay the GW P of this is very interesting it is 23,900 that is the gwp so that means this is the has the highest warming potential among all six so if you think about this it is if one ton of CO2 is there okay same warming can be achieved by 1 by 23,900 tons of sf6 so you can see that instead of one ton of carbon dioxide imagine this room has one ton of carbon dioxide weight then you require 1 by 23,900 much much much smaller quantity of sf6 to achieve the same warming potential or achieve the same warming or same increase in temperature of the globe okay so this global warming potential is one way for us to treat the or compare these emissions or these gases so now we get into okay now what if we emit all these gases we put all of them into the atmosphere how do we solve this problem how do we deal with it so the way we solve this problem is by a philosophy or by an approach called carbon sequestration okay so the carbon sequestration is process of capturing CO2 or other ghg from the emission source and remove it from atmosphere to avoid global warming so if the gas is coming out if you capture it and remove it from the environment or the atmosphere so then the global warming won't happen so there is three types of sequestration three major type of sequestration number one is called as geological sequestration okay this accounts for approximately 1% of the total carbon or the greenhouse gas emission okay so what is do here is capture directly directly from anthropogenic that means human created okay anthropogenic sources and dispose or disposal into geological formation formation for long period of time for a long period of time what is a geological formation you can think about about it as rocks okay or uh big quaries or something like that so let's talk about it as rocks for the time being so what do we do is we capture the carbon dioxide let's take carbon dioxide an example so example capture CO2 convert to dry ice uh dig a hole in a rock or a large Rock uh put dry ice and seal so what happens is you carbon dioxide is emitting you capture that make it into dry ice dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide dig a big hole in a rock put the dry eyes there seal it with cement that you can think of about it as the one way of geological sequestration the problem with the geological sequestration is it is expensive and uh increases the cost of goods and services by doing this drilling a hall on the Rock taking this solidifying it putting it sealing it with cement all those kind of things actually increases a lot of cost into this so the number two this is called as the ocean sequestration okay this accounts for about 33% of the total sequestration in the uh in the earth in the earth okay so what happens here is it is captured from atmosphere from atmosphere ether as dissolved gas over a longer time scale over a longer time scale uh as carbonate sediments okay uh this is done through algae uh on the sea floor so what happens here is you have Ocean and the yes or over a long time so what happens is sorry I miss the nor so you you capture it from the atmosphere because there is ocean then there is water and the carbon dioxide will slightly dissolve in water uh become carbonic acid so it's either dissolved in the gas the gas gets dissolved in water slightly and it is taken in by various living organisms or otherwise the Carbonite sediment so alga alga is the water alga we talking about or um the water green plants which actually would use this carbon dioxide do photosynthesis convert it in the form of starch glucose other things and then they keep it in their body and when they die along with them this captured carbon dioxide of the starch also goes to the bottom of the sea floor and because there's lot of water in it it actually would because of the pressure of the water it actually would get sea custard into the sea floor that's also one of the other reasons people always say that the um seaf Flor is also a good place where slowly slowly slowly crude oil actually gets generated because such kind of um carbon sedimented there will slowly convert to crude oil or hydrocarbons we talk about right then comes the third one which is called as terrestrial terrestrial sequestration okay the terrestrial sequestration accounts for about 66% of the total sequestration so the the logic here is CO2 carbon dioxide from the atmosphere we are talking carbon dioxide here is because most of the other gases the plants cannot really absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is absorbed is absorbed through photosynthesis photosynthesis and stored as organic carbon organic carbon in soil soils and biomass so that's why people say planting trees would actually reduce the global warming because what happens is the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere the plants capture them okay so so who is doing the photosynthesis who does this the answer is plants okay so that is herbs shrubs and trees right from the grass till the Big Trees mango trees banan trees Etc all of them do photosynthesis and photosynthesis is you remember probably the use of carbon dioxide water and sunlight to create stars and the photosynthesis also releases oxygen into the atmosphere and during the photosynthesis whatever the starch starch that you make that's the organic carbon it gets stored in the plant in the form of the leaves the stem the fruits Etc and otherwise in The Roots also and then slowly when the plant dies it actually gets stored in the soil and also part of the biomass because when the leaf falls down and Decay that remains in the leaf as part of the soil and uh stay there so these are the three ways the this this is geological sequestration this is man-made okay whereas the ocean sequestration is natural phenomena and terrestrial sequestration is also natural phenomena okay so there are two natural phenomenas and one man-made phenomena but the manmade one is the most expensive other two are the cheaper version of this and we will elaborate these kind of things in the coming lectures now we talk about the big word which is called as the carbon credit and what is carbon credit is also we need to understand so a carbon credit for us again for this course okay this definitions are slightly modified for our course specifically so for us it is a permit okay that allows that allows the holding organization holding organization okay to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide a certain amount of CO2 okay or other equivalent ghgs or other equivalent greenhouse gases okay so it is actually a permit that allows the holding organization or the individual who is holding it to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other equivalent ghgs okay so if you say one credit permits the emission of of a mass equivalent Mass equal to 1 ton of CO2 so one carbon credit that means I have one credit that will allow the emission of a mass equivalent of one ton of carbon dioxide so if I am emitting one ton of carbon dioxide I can actually emit 1X 24 tons of methane if my carbon dioxide is not my primary emission gas it is methane then I can do it if it is sf6 then based on the so this comparison compare using gwp Okay using the global warming potential we can compare whichever gas that you are actually emitting as part of this and some of these okay if you look into this this is the uh some example of carbon certificates if you look into this one this is a carbon offset certificate you can see that okay so there is one of them this is an offset certificate this is also an offset certificate this is an emission reduction okay certificate there are multiple terms and names and standards that are being followed by people but if you look into this the green pop it was in sometime in July 2012 19 T of carbon dioxide equalent was offsetted or reduced as part of it so this kind of certificates it's actually these certificate that you see these are in a way these are permits okay once it is somebody evaluates and certified it that yes you have the capability to do this or do something like that or you have we have certify that you have reduced 19 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent so that means you can go and emit a mass equivalence of 19 T of carbon dioxide because the logic here is it assures a zero sum gain because the permit is the permit Zero Sum game how is it assures that it's a zero sum game because the sequestration activity has already occurred so somebody has already done something got the carbon dioxide removed it away from the atmosphere and hence since you have already removed it even if you go and emit the same quantity it will turn out to be a zero sum game there will be no effect on the total amount of carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide equivalence in the atmosphere as long as you are not emitting beyond what the offset certificate or the emission reduction certificate is awarding you okay with this we will take a quick break and then we'll talk about the trading car how do you trade the carbon credits because once you have a credit then you can give buy it sell it make money out of it how do we do all of that that's all part of the upcoming lecture in the the following sessions so thank you very much for your patient hearing and we will get back quickly soon thank you [Music] [Music] [Music]