Abstract:
Driven by the “carbon peak and carbon neutrality” goal, low-carbon technologies will experience large-scale development, and traditional technologies will be replaced, which will have a direct impact on raw materials, capital, labor demand and pollutant emissions of the relevant industries in the industrial chain. Therefore, it is urgent to assess in advance the risk of imbalance of key factors and rising environmental impacts triggered by the development of low-carbon technologies, so as to avoid threatening the safety of the industry chain and restricting the realization of the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. To this end, in this paper 10 types of low-carbon technologies that are expected to be popularized on a large scale in the future were selected, including electrolytic water hydrogen technology, electrochemical energy storage technology, low-carbon power generation technologies, electric arc furnace steelmaking technology and multi-channel coal combustion technology, as research objects, and the comprehensive impacts of large-scale popularization of each technology on raw materials, capital, labor demand and pollutant emissions of the relevant industries in the industry chain from 2024 to 2030 were assessed, and the potential risks were identified. The results show that: key mineral resources such as cobalt, copper, nickel, lithium and manganese that have a high degree of dependence on foreign countries and a rapid growth in future demand, are at relatively greater risk of shortage; the development of photovoltaic power generation technology has the greatest demand for financial resources; the labor demand caused by the popularization of electrochemical energy storage technology will grow the fastest; the electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing industry in the upstream of the key low-carbon technology industry chain will face severe risks of insufficient capital and labor supply; the coal mining industry will face certain risks of labor surplus; and the metal ore mining industry will face greater risks of rising environmental pollution. This paper further proposes strategies to address the risks that may be faced by the technology, components, and upstream, midstream and downstream industries.