On April 29, 2024, the first Carbon Neutrality and Energy System Transformation (CNEST) Frontier Seminar was successfully held at the Institute for Carbon Neutrality of Tsinghua University (ICON, Tsinghua). This seminar invited Steven P. Hamburg, Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and Jiang Lin, Nat Simons Chair Scientist in China Energy Policy at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to give keynote speeches and engage in discussions on related topics. The seminar was chaired by Lu Xi, Assistant to the Dean of the ICON, and attended by Zhang Chenyi, a researcher at the National Climate Center, and Xie Donglai, a senior scientist at EDF.

Hamburg introduced the global methane monitoring satellite project that EDF is promoting. He explained that methane emissions contribute 30% of global warming and dominate the rate of global warming. Since 2011, EDF has been monitoring methane emissions from the oil and gas industry in the United States, using a combination of top-down and bottom-up methods such as aerial monitoring and ground sampling. There are already some satellites on the market that monitor methane emissions at the global and facility levels, while the EDF MethaneSAT monitoring satellite project focuses on regional-level monitoring to obtain large-scale, high-resolution, and continuous methane emission monitoring data to more accurately identify regional and point emission sources. The monitoring satellite can monitor 30 targets per day, each covering an area of 200 square kilometers with a pixel size of 100 meters by 400 meters, hoping to monitor the methane emissions generated by 80% of global oil and gas production. The monitoring satellite weighs 400 kilograms and is launched by a Falcon 9 rocket, making it the heaviest of the 15 satellites launched in the same batch. The funds for this project come entirely from philanthropic organizations and are used for parts of the satellite’s flight, launch, ground station, operations, and software control. In addition, EDF has also launched the MethaneAIR aircraft monitoring project to monitor carbon dioxide and methane emissions. EDF hopes to cooperate with China to jointly conduct research using monitoring data.

Dr. Lin Jiang presented the latest research findings on the assessment of the impact of offshore wind power on China’s economy and society. He pointed out that currently, China’s offshore wind power has a strong development momentum, mainly due to the demand for electricity and energy security in the economically developed coastal provinces and the decline in the cost of offshore wind power. He has established a development and impact assessment model for offshore wind power, incorporating influencing factors such as carbon emission caps, the decline in the cost of offshore wind power, and electricity demand. The model’s calculation results show that in a high-offshore wind power scenario, the installed capacity of offshore wind power will increase from 328 GW to 1000 GW by 2050, and the total system cost will only increase by 1%. By 2050, China’s coastal provinces will transform from electricity importers to exporters, and the central region will become the main electricity demand region, which will have an important impact on the development planning of the power grid.

After the speeches, Lu Xi presented commemorative plaques to the two experts. The two experts answered questions from the audience and interacted with the students.

The Carbon Neutrality and Energy System Transformation (CNEST) Frontier Seminar is organized by the Carbon Neutrality and Energy System Transformation (CNEST) multilateral cooperation program initiated by Tsinghua University and the World Carbon Neutrality Association (in preparation), and hosted by the ICON. The seminar series will continue to invite renowned experts and scholars from academia and industry at home and abroad to share cutting-edge science and technology, industry trends, and policy developments in the field of carbon neutrality and energy system transformation.