Air Quality-Carbon-Water Synergies and Trade-offs in China’s Natural Gas Industry

Qin, Y., Höglund-Isaksson, L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7514-3135, Byers, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0349-5742, Feng, K., Wagner, F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3429-2374, Peng, W., & Mauzerall, D.L. (2018). Air Quality-Carbon-Water Synergies and Trade-offs in China’s Natural Gas Industry. Nature Sustainability 1 (9) 505-511. 10.1038/s41893-018-0136-7.

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Abstract

Both energy production and consumption can simultaneously affect regional air quality, local water stress, and the global climate. Identifying the air quality-carbon
water interactions due to both energy sources and end-uses is important for capturing potential co-benefits while avoiding unintended consequences when designing sustainable energy transition pathways. Here, we examine the air quality
carbon-water interdependencies of China’s six major natural gas sources and three end-use gas-for-coal substitution strategies in 2020. We find that replacing coal with gas sources other than coal-based synthetic natural gas (SNG) generally offer national air quality-carbon-water co-benefits. However, SNG achieves air quality benefits while increasing carbon emissions and water demand, particularly in regions already suffering from high per capita carbon emissions and severe water scarcity. Depending on end-uses, non-SNG gas-for-coal substitution results in enormous variations in air quality, carbon, and water improvements, with notable air quality-carbon synergies but air quality-water trade-offs. This indicates that more attention is needed to determine in which end-uses natural gas should be deployed to achieve desired environmental improvements. Assessing air quality
carbon-water impacts across local, regional and global administrative levels is
43 crucial for designing and balancing the co-benefits of sustainable energy
44 development and deployment policies at all scales.

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