Energy conservation and CO2 mitigation potentials in the Chinese pulp and paper industry

• Presented energy use and CO2 emissions in China's pulp and paper industry.
• Assessed the potential application of 23 energy-efficiency technologies.
• Employed energy conservation supply curve method to estimate saving potentials.
• Evaluated cost-effective and technical energy conservation and CO2 mitigation potentials.

China's paper production accounted for nearly a quarter of the world's total paper production in 2010. In this study, 23 energy saving technologies applicable to the pulping and papermaking process in China are identified and analyzed. The conservation supply curve (CSC) method is employed to assess the technical and economic aspects of energy conservation. The fuel CSC for Chinese pulp and paper industry shows the cost-effective and technical fuel conservation potential is 180 PJ and 254 PJ, accounting for 27% and 38% of total fuel used in 2010, respectively. The CO2 mitigation potential related to the cost-effective fuel efficiency is 17 Mt CO2 and the technical potential is 24 Mt CO2. The electricity CSC shows the technical electricity conservation potential is 2316 GWh, representing 4% of total electricity consumption. All of the electricity efficiency measures are shown to be cost-effective in this study. The CO2 mitigation resulted from electricity efficiency is around 2 Mt CO2. In addition, sensitivity analyses for the parameters of penetration rate, discount rate, and energy price are conducted to assess their influence on the final results.