A Review of the Status of Fossil and Renewable Energies in Southeast Asia and Its Implications on the Decarbonization of ASEAN

An environmental perspective of energy consumption, overpopulation, and human capital barriers in South Asia

Prior literature is substantive in highlighting the nexus between pollutant and socio-economic predictors; however, the role of human interaction has not been sufficiently explored. Thus, the present study examines the validity of the environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in the presence of energy consumption, overpopulation, and human capital index in five South Asian countries. It employs fixed effects, random effects, and dynamic panel causality techniques with a set of panel data from 1972 to 2021. The baseline results validate the existence of the EKC hypothesis in the recipient panel. Nevertheless, the findings reveal that energy consumption and population density have positive effects, while human capital has negative impacts on CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the study observes that energy consumption and per capita GDP have a significant causal link with CO2 emissions, whereas CO2 emissions are evident to have causality with population density and human capital index. The results are robust and suggest that the consolidation of an effective regulatory framework and technological improvements are substantial measures to improve environmental quality in South Asia. Moreover, allocating sufficient resources to uplift contemporary educational and health status would be imperative to improving environmental quality as aspired to by the Paris Agreement.

Decarbonising ASEAN coastal shipping: Addressing climate change and coastal ecosystem issues through sustainable carbon neutrality strategies

This study analyzes the impact of ASEAN's goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 on climate change and coastal ecosystems by examining carbon emissions and energy usage from 2019 to 2050 using different scenarios to reduce emissions and meet global temperature goals. This research proposes strategies to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change effects on coastal ecosystems, focusing on evaluating CO2 emissions from ASEAN's coastal shipping sector. Geospatial data was used to analyze ship activity and develop carbon neutrality strategies. Various sources are used to gather data, including the Maritime Portal, exact Earth AIS, FASA and GFW. This study finds that container ships emitted 13.7 × 106 t of CO2 in 2019, with the transportation sector contributing 3.8% of the total greenhouse gas in 2020. Without regulations, CO2 emissions could increase fourfold by 2050. The study recommends implementing policies such as adopting clean fuels, energy efficiency standards and fuel-related regulations to reduce CO2 emissions by 65-80% by 2050. It also emphasizes the importance of cleaner technologies, regulatory considerations and collaboration, which would have positive implications for coastal ecosystems. This study is beneficial to professionals in the maritime and shipping industries, policy makers, environmental consultants, sustainability specialists, and international organizations.

Assessing the competitiveness of solar photovoltaic products in comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-pacific partnership countries

Solar PV enables the conversion of solar energy into electricity and has become a clean energy technology for economic development. The advantages and disadvantages of solar photovoltaic vary among CPTPP member nations; nevertheless, since the CPTPP's implementation, fewer researchers have evaluated the member countries' solar photovoltaic goods' level of international competitiveness. In order to correct the flaw that the RCA index can only be studied from trade volume, this study adopts the IRCA index method and the revised CMS model, which integrates a number of variables to analyze the competitiveness of solar photovoltaic in each country. The study's findings indicate that: (1) the structural effect has a significant impact on export growth, particularly during the epidemic period, when Australia's contribution rate reached 106.58%; (2) the competitiveness effect has a lesser impact on export growth, and the epidemic led to a decline in competitiveness, with Japan's contribution rate reaching -262.85%; (3) the second-order effect has a declining trend in its contribution rate of export growth; (4) the export competitiveness of solar PV products differs between CPTPP countries, with power supply products having the most export competitiveness and solar cells having a steady comparative advantage in a weaker state. Apart than Japan, the remaining nations' comparative advantages for PV products are less than 1. Based on the above research findings, this paper puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations.

Black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae as potential feedstock for the biodiesel production: Recent advances and challenges

Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) Hermetia illucens is fastest growing and most promising insect species especially recommended to bring high-fat content as 5th generation bioenergy. The fat content can be fully optimized during the life-cycle of the BSFL through various organic dietary supplements and environmental conditions. Enriched fat can be obtained during the larval stages of the BSF. The presence of high saturated and unsaturated fatty acids in their body helps to produce 70 % of extractable oil which can be converted into biodiesel through transesterification. The first-generation biodiesel process mainly depends on catalytic transesterification, however, BSFL had 94 % of biodiesel production through non-catalytic transesterification. This increases the sustainability of producing biodiesel with less energy input in the process line. Other carbon emitting factors involved in the rearing of BSFL are less than the other biodiesel feedstocks including microalgae, cooking oil, and non-edible oil. Therefore, this review is focused on evaluating the optimum dietary source to produce fatty acid rich larvae and larval growth to accumulate C16-18 fatty acids in larger amounts from agro food waste. The process of optimization and biorefining of lipids using novel techniques have been discussed herein. The sustainability impact was evaluated from the cultivation to biodiesel conversion with greenhouse gas emissions scores in the entire life-cycle of process flow. The state-of-the-art in connecting circular bioeconomy loop in the search for bioenergy was meticulously covered.

A Decarbonization Roadmap for Taiwan and Its Energy Policy Implications

The objective of this paper is to propose a decarbonization roadmap for Taiwan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 by analyzing the status of fossil and non-fossil energies, screening applicable decarbonization technologies for their effectiveness, and then proposing an energy mix for the future. The novelty of this work lies in the screening process, which considers six, instead of one or two, categories: sustainability, security, affordability, reliability, technology readiness, and technology impact. Based on this screening, a decarbonization roadmap is proposed and compared with the announced net-zero emissions (NZE) plan. The proposed roadmap requires renewable electricity to grow at an average annual growth rate of 7% between now and 2050, instead of the 10.1% required by the NZE plan, which is more achievable based on issues identified with renewable energies during our screening exercise. The proposed roadmap improves on the NZE plan in the following aspects: (1) using clean coal technologies to decarbonize existing coal-fired power plants, (2) relying more on gas than wind and solar energies to replace coal and nuclear energy for power generation, (3) accelerating carbon capture and storage (CCS) implementation, (4) delaying the phaseout of nuclear energy until 2050, and (5) using blue instead of green hydrogen to decarbonize the transport and industry sectors. Implications of this roadmap for future research and development and energy policies are also discussed.

Evaluation of Decarbonization Technologies for ASEAN Countries via an Integrated Assessment Tool

A new assessment tool for evaluating decarbonization technologies that considers each technology’s sustainability, security, affordability, readiness, and impact for a specific country is proposed. This tool is applied to a set of decarbonization technologies for the power, transport, and industry sectors for the ten Southeast Asian countries that constitute ASEAN. This results in a list of the most promising decarbonization technologies, as well as the remaining issues that need more research and development. This study reveals several common themes for ASEAN’s decarbonization. First, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a key technology for large-scale CO2 emission. Second, for countries that rely heavily on coal for power generation, switching to gas can halve their CO2 emission in the power sector and should be given high priority. Third, hydropower and bioenergy both have high potential for the majority of ASEAN countries if their sustainability issues can be resolved satisfactorily. Fourth, replacing conventional vehicles by electric vehicles is the overarching theme in the road transport sector, but will result in increased demand for electricity. In the medium to long term, the use of hydrogen for marine fuel and biofuels for aviation fuel are preferred solutions for the marine and aviation transport sectors. Fifth, for the industry sector, installing CCS in industrial plants should be given priority, but replacing fossil fuels by blue hydrogen for high-temperature heating is the preferred long-term solution.