China＇s economic growth is heavily influenced by exports, while reconciling environmental regulation and economic growth requires handling the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiven...China＇s economic growth is heavily influenced by exports, while reconciling environmental regulation and economic growth requires handling the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiveness well. The effects of environmental regulation on industrial competitiveness are largely subject to the institutional design of environmental regulation. Despite numerous studies on the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiveness, a consensus has yet to be reached. Aside from differences in research methodology, these studies failed to give sufficient consideration to the impact of environmental regulation on industrial competitiveness. Such effects can be negative or positive depending on the design of environmental regulatory policy. This paper has investigated the relationship between environmental regulation and the competitiveness of China＇s iron and steel industry and discovered that tighter environmental regulation does not diminish the competitiveness of the iron and steel industry since the policy design of environmental regulation accommodates the tolerance of advanced production capacity and includes a reasonable cost sharing mechanism. This discovery is of important reference for China to develop rational policy design to balance the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiveness.展开更多
Traditional optimization models often lack a systems-level perspective at conception, which limits their effectiveness. Expanding system boundaries allow scientists and engineers to model complex interactions more acc...Traditional optimization models often lack a systems-level perspective at conception, which limits their effectiveness. Expanding system boundaries allow scientists and engineers to model complex interactions more accurately, leading to higher efficiency and profitability in industrial systems. Ecological systems have evolved for billions of years under conditions of material and energy shortage, and ecologists have defined analysis tools and metrics for identifying important principles. These principles may provide the framework to circumvent the limitations of traditional optimization techniques. More specifically, by recruiting functional roles that are often found in ecological systems, but are absent in industrial systems, industries can better mimic how natural systems organize themselves. The objective of this analysis is to traditionally optimize a manufacturing process by comparing the model with ecological and resource-based performance metrics in order to redesign the model with the addition of important functional roles that are found throughout nature. Industry partners provided data for this analysis, which involved building a water network for an existing steel manufacturing facility in China. The results of the traditional optimization model indicate a 23%, 29%, and 20% decline in freshwater consumption, wastewater discharge, and total annual cost, respectively. However, our ecologically inspired optimization model provides an additional 21% and 25% decline in freshwater consumption and total annual cost, respectively. Furthermore, no water is discharged. These results suggest that this unconventional approach to optimization could provide an effective technique not used by existing algorithms to solve the challenging problem of pursuing more sustainable industrial systems.展开更多
China is now facing huge pressure from both the domestic concern of energy security and the global community's call for emission reduction commitment.As one of the major energy consumers and greenhouse gas emitter...China is now facing huge pressure from both the domestic concern of energy security and the global community's call for emission reduction commitment.As one of the major energy consumers and greenhouse gas emitters,China's iron and steel industry has a huge clean development mechanism(CDM) potential.This article both quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes the current status of CDM project activities in the iron and steel industry in China,including characteristics of approved project types,applicable methodologies,and potential technology fields.From the perspective of project implementation,the article summarizes development barriers such as high investment risk,difficulty in project identification,strict requirements on PPDs,long registration waiting time,and etc.Policy suggestions are also put forwarded to help better promote the development of CDM projects in the iron and steel industry.展开更多
文摘China＇s economic growth is heavily influenced by exports, while reconciling environmental regulation and economic growth requires handling the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiveness well. The effects of environmental regulation on industrial competitiveness are largely subject to the institutional design of environmental regulation. Despite numerous studies on the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiveness, a consensus has yet to be reached. Aside from differences in research methodology, these studies failed to give sufficient consideration to the impact of environmental regulation on industrial competitiveness. Such effects can be negative or positive depending on the design of environmental regulatory policy. This paper has investigated the relationship between environmental regulation and the competitiveness of China＇s iron and steel industry and discovered that tighter environmental regulation does not diminish the competitiveness of the iron and steel industry since the policy design of environmental regulation accommodates the tolerance of advanced production capacity and includes a reasonable cost sharing mechanism. This discovery is of important reference for China to develop rational policy design to balance the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiveness.
基金We are very grateful to the National Science Foundation （CBET- 0967536） and the National Natural Science Foundation of China （2156112001）, which have contributed significantly to the completion of this research.
文摘Traditional optimization models often lack a systems-level perspective at conception, which limits their effectiveness. Expanding system boundaries allow scientists and engineers to model complex interactions more accurately, leading to higher efficiency and profitability in industrial systems. Ecological systems have evolved for billions of years under conditions of material and energy shortage, and ecologists have defined analysis tools and metrics for identifying important principles. These principles may provide the framework to circumvent the limitations of traditional optimization techniques. More specifically, by recruiting functional roles that are often found in ecological systems, but are absent in industrial systems, industries can better mimic how natural systems organize themselves. The objective of this analysis is to traditionally optimize a manufacturing process by comparing the model with ecological and resource-based performance metrics in order to redesign the model with the addition of important functional roles that are found throughout nature. Industry partners provided data for this analysis, which involved building a water network for an existing steel manufacturing facility in China. The results of the traditional optimization model indicate a 23%, 29%, and 20% decline in freshwater consumption, wastewater discharge, and total annual cost, respectively. However, our ecologically inspired optimization model provides an additional 21% and 25% decline in freshwater consumption and total annual cost, respectively. Furthermore, no water is discharged. These results suggest that this unconventional approach to optimization could provide an effective technique not used by existing algorithms to solve the challenging problem of pursuing more sustainable industrial systems.
文摘China is now facing huge pressure from both the domestic concern of energy security and the global community's call for emission reduction commitment.As one of the major energy consumers and greenhouse gas emitters,China's iron and steel industry has a huge clean development mechanism(CDM) potential.This article both quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes the current status of CDM project activities in the iron and steel industry in China,including characteristics of approved project types,applicable methodologies,and potential technology fields.From the perspective of project implementation,the article summarizes development barriers such as high investment risk,difficulty in project identification,strict requirements on PPDs,long registration waiting time,and etc.Policy suggestions are also put forwarded to help better promote the development of CDM projects in the iron and steel industry.
