Performance
Greenhouse gas emissions
We accept the urgent need for climate change action and recognise the issue as being one of our greatest challenges and opportunities. We aim to progressively reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy footprint of our operations, and have targets to incrementally improve the energy and GHG intensities of all our operations. However new technologies offer step change improvements when developing large projects.
During 2008 a new Energy and Climate Strategy team was formed to provide strategic direction and support to the businesses. This includes generating long term forecasts to understand opportunities for material reductions in emissions.
Rio Tinto continues to participate in a number of collaborative efforts to promote effective public policy frameworks to address climate change, including the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) and submissions on proposed legislation to governments in Australia, the US and Canada.
The aluminium product group now represents approximately 65 per cent of the Group's total GHG emissions. Following alignment of the Rio Tinto and Alcan energy and GHG reporting methodologies, Rio Tinto's GHG emissions baseline for 2007 including Alcan's bauxite, alumina and smelting operations was 49.3 million tonnes. In 2008 Rio Tinto's total GHG emissions, made up of on site emissions and those from the net purchase of electricity and steam, was 50.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e). 30.3 million tonnes of this total were on site emissions, over which Rio Tinto has direct control.
There are significant GHG emissions associated with the transportation, processing and use of Rio Tinto's products.
In 2008, these included:
- Approximately 6.8 million tonnes of CO2-e associated with third party transport of our products and raw materials.
- An estimated 359 million tonnes of CO2-e associated with customers using our coal in electricity generation and steel production.
- Approximately 286 million tonnes of CO2-e associated with steel production from our iron ore. These emissions are not additive to the coal use emissions above, as some customers use both our iron ore and our coal to produce steel.
The combined Group's GHG emissions efficiency performance decreased by 0.8 per cent from 2007. Performance of the former Rio Tinto operations decreased during 2008, but this was offset by a small improvement from the former Alcan operations.
Within the aluminium product group, the increased portfolio of hydro sourced electricity has contributed to a 17 per cent reduction in total GHG emissions per tonne of aluminium smelted, and a 14 per cent reduction in the intensity of our alumina refining activities in 2008.
We did not meet our 2003 to 2008 greenhouse gas emissions target, with a 3.8 per cent increase in emissions per tonne of product (excluding former Alcan operations), compared to a four per cent reduction target.
Over the target period, improved anode use and PFC emission control at aluminium smelting operations contributed to overall group performance improvements compared to 2003. However, these were overshadowed by additional waste movement required to access bulk commodities such as coal and iron ore. Lower grade ore was also mined and processed at some operations. Land clearance rates increased associated with mine expansion and development to meet the changing market conditions. These changes resulted in increased GHG emissions per unit of production.
We believe it is important to understand the impact of our products along the value chain, including product life cycle emissions. We continually seek ways to lower our on site emissions. Where we can influence our customers, we work to develop efficient downstream processes, and our metals and minerals can bring energy and emissions benefits. Uranium is used in low carbon power generation; borates improve insulation products; aluminium makes cars lighter, reducing the amount of fuel used during their operation; and it can be efficiently recycled.
Where our activities are an energy intensive part of the product lifecycle, we seek to improve our performance. For example, Rio Tinto Alcan is a leader in the development of energy efficient aluminium smelting technology. Its smelters have reduced on site emissions intensity by more than 65 per cent since 1990.
For commodities where processing or using our products is energy intensive, we are developing lower emission technologies. Due to global demand, coal is likely to remain a significant source of energy for the foreseeable future. We are therefore investing in developing and commercialising carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. We sponsor one of the most comprehensive subsurface monitoring programmes in Australia, the Otway project, which demonstrates the feasibility of CCS. Rio Tinto is a founding member of the Global CCS Institute as well as a member of the FutureGen CCS project in the US.
Rio Tinto is a joint venture partner in the HIsmelt® direct smelting iron making technology, which has lower emissions than industry best practice.
