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Purpose -- The purpose of this paper mainly is to examine the relevant rules concerning documentary letter of credit (L/C) fraud under criminal law in England and China. Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyses the regulations about such crime and relevant literature. Findings -- The similarities and differences of such rules have been identified briefly. L/C fraud is considered a conduct crime; and unspecific or vague provisions concerning this crime may cause difficulties of application in judicial practice in both England and China. But the possible punishment for L/C fraud criminals under Chinese criminal law seems more severe than that under English law. Dealing with L/C fraud in international trade under national criminal laws is not effective. Regional and international efforts on legal assistance in cross-border criminal cases still remain to be improved. Research limitations/implications -- The limitation is that it examines merely relevant substantial rules in legislation. This opens the paths to future research on the approach towards L/C fraud demonstrated in court cases in England and in China. Social implications -- The research underlies the need to take serious attitude and make more effective efforts towards cross-border criminal cases, although different countries may have different rules concerning specific economic crimes. Originality/value -- This paper fills the gap of a comparative study on how L/C is regulated under criminal law regime in England and China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper discusses the current status of CCS in China, providing an update of current projects and past activities in research and development, and a brief overview of prospects for CCS deployment in China. CCS related research in China has been building from a focus on research and development and exploration of the technical considerations o f CCS potential in China in coordination with international partners. While large scale demonstration of integrated CCS projects is still at an early stage, there is significant knowledge and technical expertise that can be derived from ongoing pilot projects. These projects employ various mature technologies that may be integrated and scaled to facilitate demonstration and deployment of CCS in the future. In addition, China is increasingly exploring opportunities in CO2 utilization to drive and support deployment of CCS–this is also known as CO2 capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). This paper provides information on some of these key activities, including details of specific projects and a background of the regulatory and policy frameworks and international cooperation on CCS and CCUS in China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Bohai Bay Basin is the largest petroliferous sedimentary basin in China. This basin is encompassed by the Bohai Sea economic zone where a large volume of CO 2 is emitted directly into the atmosphere without any treatment. Meanwhile, most of the oil and gas provinces in this basin are facing the selection of tertiary recovery technologies after the completion of water flooding. CO 2 enhanced oil recovery (CO 2 -EOR) is an optimal choice for achieving both a reduction in CO 2 emissions and enhanced (or improved) oil recovery. In this paper, an evaluation of the CO 2 -EOR and CO 2 storage potential was carried out at the reservoir scale, based on an established oil reservoir database from numerous data sources, to provide the basis investigating CO 2 -EOR site selection and regional CO 2 emission reduction in China. Moreover, an assessment scheme for the oil reservoirs in the Bohai Bay Basin was also proposed. The results showed that 613 CO 2 -EOR candidate oil reservoirs, including 354 miscible CO 2 -EOR candidate oil reservoirs and 259 immiscible CO 2 -EOR candidate oil reservoirs were identified by applying the screening methodology to 2,891 oil reservoirs in the Bohai Bay Basin. It was predicted that 683 Mt of additional oil can be produced from the CO 2 -EOR candidate oil reservoirs, and simultaneously 1,345 Mt of CO 2 would be incidentally stored in these candidate oil reservoirs. Furthermore, the most prospective area is the miscible CO 2 -EOR candidate oil reservoirs in the Shengli oil and gas province, where 140 Mt oil could be produced with the CO 2 -EOR and the injection and incidental storage of 225 Mt of CO 2 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's steel sector, contributing 40% of world steel production, are moving the plants out of highly-populated areas in China. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an important technology to achieve a deep reduction of emissions in steel plants. Given by high cost and lack of policy incentive in deploying the CCS process, there has been a lack of progress in CCS within the steel sector in China. Capture readiness is a design concept to ease future CCS retrofit and avoid the carbon lock-in effect in steel plants. Capture Readiness design requires moderate upfront investment, i.e. less than 0.5% additional capital expenditure, but could easily enable the plant to be retrofitted with CCS technologies in their lifetime. The paper develops a novel linear programming model to assess the economic cost of Capture Readiness design in a generic steel plant in China. The Baowu Steel Zhanjiang project was used as a reference plant to develop the generic steel plant for the model. Through a Monte Carlo simulation, the results show that the economic cost of making new steel plants in capture readiness for 0.5 million tonnes capture is CNY 65 million (USD 9.5 million) in a conservative 5% carbon price growth rate scenario. The paper found the value of flexibility brought by capture readiness design is significant and is equal to approximately 15% of initial capital investment. The economically viable chance of retrofitting steel plants with CCS technologies in the lifetime is 49%. In an uncertainty analysis, for a 6% growth rate of carbon price, the option value could be increased to CNY 145 million while the probability of retrofit increases to 79%. China's CCS policy should consider a requirement for newly built steel plants to adopt capture readiness design to capture the significant economic value and ease emissions reduction in the iron and steel sector in the long term. • This is the first study investigating CCS readiness in the iron and steel sector. • Capture readiness steel plant can ease retrofit processes with carbon capture and storage in a plant's lifetime. • The paper proposes the key criteria for designing a CCS readiness steel plant. • A novel model is developed in assessing the value of capture readiness. • The retrofit option value of a steel plant is higher than the estimated additional cost for making CCS readiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of the present article is to conduct an integrated assessment in order to explore whether CCS could be a viable technological option for significantly reducing future CO 2 emissions in China. Methods: In this paper, an integrated approach covering five assessment dimensions is chosen. Each dimension is investigated using specific methods (graphical abstract). Results: The most crucial precondition that must be met is a reliable storage capacity assessment based on site-specific geological data. Our projection of different trends of coal-based power plant capacities up to 2050 ranges between 34 and 221 Gt of CO 2 that may be captured from coal-fired power plants to be built by 2050. If very optimistic assumptions about the country’s CO 2 storage potential are applied, 192 Gt of CO 2 could theoretically be stored as a result of matching these sources with suitable sinks. If a cautious approach is taken, this figure falls to 29 Gt of CO 2 . In practice, this potential will decrease further with the impact of technical, legal, economic and social acceptance factors. Further constraints may be the delayed commercial availability of CCS in China; a significant barrier to achieving the economic viability of CCS due to a currently non-existing nation-wide CO 2 pricing scheme that generates a sufficiently strong price signal; an expected life-cycle reduction rate of the power plant’s greenhouse gas emissions of 59–60%; and an increase in most other negative environmental and social impacts. Conclusion and practice implications: Most experts expect a striking dominance of coal-fired power generation in the country’s electricity sector, even if the recent trend towards a flattened deployment of coal capacity and reduced annual growth rates of coal-fired generation proves to be true in the future. In order to reduce fossil fuel-related CO 2 emissions to a level that would be consistent with the long-term climate protection target of the international community to which China is increasingly committing itself, this option may require the introduction of CCS. However, a precondition for opting for CCS would be finding robust solutions to the constraints highlighted in this article. Furthermore, a comparison with other low-carbon technology options may be useful in drawing completely valid conclusions on the economic, ecological and social viability of CCS in a low-carbon policy environment. The assessment dimensions should be integrated into macro-economic optimisation models by combining qualitative with quantitative modelling, and the flexible operation of CCS power plants should be analysed in view of a possible role of CCS for balancing fluctuating renewable energies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, there are considerable discrepancies between China's central government and some local governments in attitudes towards coal to liquids (CTL) technology. Energy return on investment (EROI) analysis of CTL could provide new insights that may help solve this dilemma. Unfortunately, there has been little research on this topic; this paper therefore analyses the EROI of China's Shenhua Group Direct Coal Liquefaction (DCL) project, currently the only DCL commercial project in the world. The inclusion or omission of internal energy and by-products is controversial. The results show that the EROIstnd without by-product and with internal energy is 0.68-0.81; the EROIstnd (the standard EROI) without by-product and without internal energy is 3.70-5.53; the EROIstnd with by-product and with internal energy is 0.76-0.90; the EROIstnd with by-product and without internal energy is 4.13-6.14. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a means to control the CO2 emissions. Considering the added energy inputs of CCS at the plant level, the EROIs decrease to 0.65-0.77, 2.87-3.97, 0.72-0.85, and 3.20-4.40, respectively. The extremely low, even negative, net energy, which may be due to high investments in infrastructure and low conversion efficiency, suggests CTL is not a good choice to replace conventional energy sources, and thus, Chinese government should be prudent when developing it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a key technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But a CCS facility consumes vast amounts of energy and capital. With this in mind we analyze macroeconomic consequences of a large scale introduction of CCS in China. We modify and extend the DRC-CGE, a macroeconomic CGE model of the country that is used for long-term planning and policy analyses. We analyze an internal finance scenario of domestic funding, and an external finance scenario of international funding. In the external finance scenario CCS is installed on 70 % of all power plants by 2050. This increases demand for coal in 2050 by one fifth and import of coal by one fourth. The strain on coal resources may be an important political concern for China. In the internal finance scenario coal resources are not strained since this scenario introduces a price on carbon that lifts prices of energy. Moreover, the price on carbon cuts across the board and the internal finance scenario is much more effective at reducing $$\hbox {CO}_{2}$$ . On the other hand, in this scenario GDP goes down about 4 %, which also raises political concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: An integrated carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) system requires safe and cost-efficient solutions for transportation of the CO2 from the capturing facility to the location of storage. While growing efforts in China are underway to understand CO2 capture and storage, comparatively less attention has been paid to CO2 transportation issues. Also, to the best of our knowledge, there are no publicly available China-specific cost models for CO2 pipeline transportation that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. This paper has been developed to determine a first-order estimate of China''s cost of onshore CO2 pipeline transportation. An engineering-economic model based on China-specific data, codes, and standards to the greatest extent possible has been developed for this purpose. Based on the model, five illustrative case studies on pipelines for transporting captured CO2 from typical Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) and Ultra-supercritical (USC) generating units of 250 megawatt (MW), 400MW, 660MW, 1000MW, and 2× 1000MW are carried out. The results show the capital costs of constructing a 100-kilometers (km) pipeline are between $18 million and $102 million, depending on the amount of CO2 transported. Corresponding figures for the levelized costs are $1.84–$3.06 per tonne of CO2. Sensitivity analyses are also performed examining the effect of pipeline length and soil temperature on pipeline diameter, as well as flow rate and capital cost on levelized cost. The pipeline length is found to impact the diameter significantly, whereas soil temperature demonstrates insensitivity to pipeline diameter. Both flow rate and capital cost have significant effects on levelized cost. Comparison to other existing models based on either North American or European data implies a major cost difference between developed countries and China: China''s cost of onshore CO2 pipeline transportation is very likely much lower than those estimated in the developed countries. For a 0.02MtCO2/d case, for example, the levelized cost of CO2 transportation in China is about two-thirds that of the developed countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The storage potential of selected sites within the Bahaiwan Basin was evaluated, the storage capacity estimated and the selection criteria considered for the COACH project. This paper examines the two methods used during the project for calculation of the storage capacity in the Shengli oilfield complex within the Bahaiwan Basin. Both methodologies were used to quantify the potential CO2 storage capacity of the depleted oil hydrocarbon reservoirs of the Shengli oilfield complex. They can both be considered as “simple” equation models which try to capture an “approximation” of a possible storage capacity. Nevertheless, between these models several differences exist. The CSLF methodology works with replacement of oil, gas or formation water, but does not incorporate dissolution of CO2 in formation water. The EOR methodology of CUPB developed from methodology of Tanaka et al. on the other hand includes dissolution of CO2 into the formation water, but does not consider the time period needed for the dissolution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Making new plants CO2 capture ready (CCR) would enable them to retrofit to capture CO2 at a later date at lower cost when the appropriate policy and/or economic drivers are in place. In order to understand the economic value and investment characteristics of making new plants CCR in China, a typical 600MW pulverised coal-fired ultra-supercritical power plant, locating in Guangdong province, was examined. Combined with an engineering assessment, costs were estimated for different CCR scenarios. To analyze CCR investment opportunities, the paper applies a cash flow model for valuing capture options and CCR investment. Results were obtained by Monte-Carlo simulation, based on engineering surveys and an IEA GHG CCR study, as well as plant performance information and expert projections on carbon prices, coal prices and electricity prices. CCR investments are justified by factors such as higher retrofitting probabilities, lower early closure probabilities and fair economic return. However, the economic case for CCR largely depends on two factors: (a) whether the original plant is retrofittable without CCR; and (b) the type of investments made, for example, investments essential to CCR tend to be more economic than additional non-essential CCR features such as clutched low pressure turbines. The carbon price and discount rate were found to have significant impacts on the economics of CCR. Overall, it appears that the value of the ‘capture options’ that CCR generates for retrofitting CCS is significant, and so could justify a modest CCR investment, even assuming the original plant is retrofittable without CCR. It was also found the value of CCR might be significantly understated if the range of potential retrofitting dates is artificially constrained. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: China has built at least 70 GW of new coal- fired power installed capacity annually since 2005 and the growth is expected to continue (CEC, 2008). Chinese government, industry and academic stakeholders perceive that China will not mandate new plants to be built with carbon dioxide capture and storage systems in the short term and there is little incentive even to contemplate the first steps needed to fit plants with capture equipment [Reiner, D., Liang, X., Sun, X., Zhu, Y., Li, D., 2007. Stakeholder attitudes towards carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies in China, International Climate Change Conference, Hong Kong, May 29–31 2007]. We investigate the value of making new plants CO2 Capture Ready (CCR), which would enable them to retrofit to capture CO2 without unnecessary additional costs when the appropriate policy and /or economic drivers are in place (IEA, 2007). In order to understand the value and investment characteristics of CCR in China, a typical 600 MW pulverized-coal -fired ultra-supercritical power plant, locating at Guangdong province, was examined. Combined with a detailed engineering assessment, we obtained the costs for different CCR scenarios. To analyze CCR investment opportunities, we apply a cash flow model for valuing Capture Options, as developed in [Liang, X., Reiner, D., Gibbins J., Li J., 2007. Fianncing CCR coal-fired power plants in China by issuing capture options, EPRG Working Paper Series, EPRG0728, Cambridge, December. Available at: www.electricitypolicy.org.uk/pubs/wp/eprg0728.pdf]. Results are obtained by Monte-Carlo simulation, based on engineering surveys and the IEA (2007) CCR study, as well as plant performance information and expert projections on carbon prices, coal prices and electricity prices. CCR investments are justified by factors such as higher retrofitting probabilities, lower early-closure probabilities and fair economic return. However, the economic case for CCR largely depends on the type of investments made, for example, CCR-essential investments tend to be more economic than additional non-essential CCR features such as CCR Essential with clutched low-pressure turbines. Carbon price, coal price and discount rate also were found to have significant impacts on the economics of CCR. Overall, it appears that the value of capture options are significant, and therefore clear retrofitting strategies would be valuable for any CCR investment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]