Evaluation of CO2 emission from Egypt’s future power plants

Energy-related CO2 emissions increased to a global peak of 33 Gt in 2019, resulting in an unprecedented level of “Global Warming”. Egypt emitted 250 million tons of CO2 in 2018, thereby ranking 27th among the countries of the world in terms of energy-related CO2 emissions. Approximately 40% of CO2 emissions in Egypt orginate from the electricity generation sector, which is predominately dependent on oil and gas (90%), followed by renewables (10%; solar, wind and hydroelectric). To achieve its development goals, Egypt plans to build new power plants with a total generating capacity of 30 gigawatts (GW). Added to the current generating capacity of Egypt’s power plants (60 GW), the new power plants will enable electricity generating capacities to reach approximately 90 GW by 2030. Egypt has three scenarios to achieve this goal. In the first scenario, a diversified energy mix scenario, dependence on oil and gas will be decreased in favor of a more diversified energy mix of coal, nuclear power, in addition to renewables and hydro. The second scenario, a fossil fuel-based scenario, is based on recent discoveries of proven natural gas reserves, possibly shifting Egypt’s vision towards more dependence on natural gas, as well as renewables, nuclear and hydro. These two scenarios might lead to increased amounts of released CO2 into the atmosphere. Here we suggest a third scenario, the environmentally friendly scenario or the green scenario, in which more dependence is placed on renewables, hydro and nuclear power, in addition to natural gas, with no coal in the suggested energy mix. In this article, we analyze CO2 emissions derived from electricity generation under these three futuristic scenarios. The results of our comparison show that building new power plants will lead to CO2 emissions of 307, 330 and 128 million tons (Mt), respectively, according to the first, second and third scenario, respectively, compared to the current 100 Mt of emissions. These results clearly demonstrate that the third (green) scenario is the only scenario that allows the country to build new power plants to achieve its goals of development while only slightly increasing the amount of CO2 emissions. In addition, this scenario may be incorporated into the Nationally Determined Contributions ratified by Egypt in the Paris Agreement to limit global warming.