Li, Hao;
Lu, Xiaolong;
Li, Linman;
Lu, Bin;
Meng, Jing;
Hin Calvin, Leong Wai;
Bai, Caiquan;
(2025)
Strategic phase-down of China's coking plants unlocks major climate and environmental co-benefits.
Environmental Research Letters
10.1088/1748-9326/ae16be.
(In press).
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Abstract
China dominates global coking production with a 70% proportion, making the decarbonization of this highly energy- and emission-intensive industry critical for resource and environmental benefits. Despite discussions of decarbonization potentials at regional level, plant-specific co-benefits and technologically driven pathways remain unclear. Here, we integrate detailed data from 329 individual Chinese coking plants—characterizing their location, capacity, technology, and age—with national carbon neutrality scenarios to develop optimized, multi-criteria retirement pathways. Plants mainly located in Shanxi are phased out first before 2030 in BAU scenario while retirement are proportional across provinces in low coke production scenario. Considerable co-benefits are observed, 53.4~57.1% of water saving and emission mitigation towards 2060. Trade-offs exist due to ascending coal use if higher technical penetration of dry quenching. Our analysis quantifies the distinct contributions of demand reduction (driven by steel industry transformation) and structural efficiency improvements within the coking sector itself. These results provide the first granular, data-driven roadmap for managing China's critical coking transition, offering crucial insights for maximizing environmental gains during industrial decarbonization globally.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Strategic phase-down of China's coking plants unlocks major climate and environmental co-benefits |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1088/1748-9326/ae16be |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ae16be |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | As the Version of Record of this article is going to be / has been published on a gold open access basis under a CC BY 4.0 licence, this Accepted Manuscript is available for reuse under a CC BY 4.0 licence immediately. Everyone is permitted to use all or part of the original content in this article, provided that they adhere to all the terms of the licence https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 Although reasonable endeavours have been taken to obtain all necessary permissions from third parties to include their copyrighted content within this article, their full citation and copyright line may not be present in this Accepted Manuscript version. Before using any content from this article, please refer to the Version of Record on IOPscience once published for full citation and copyright details, as permissions may be required. All third party content is fully copyright protected and is not published on a gold open access basis under a CC BY licence, unless that is specifically stated in the figure caption in the Version of Record. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10216357 |
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