Scenario Simulation And Resource Potential Analysis Of Household Automobile Scrappage In China

As the world’s largest automobile manufacturer and consumer,China is about to enter the peak of automobile scrapping.It is of great significance to grasp the temporal-spatial distribution of the in-use stock and scrappage of household automobiles(HAs),and to evaluate their resources and economic potential,which would finally promote the implementation of the circular economy strategy in China.This paper aims to simulate different scenarios of HAs’ scrappage at the provincial level.First of all,two types of HAs were introduced(internal combustion engine automobile(ICEA)and new energy automobile(NEA))to predict the trend of in-use stock of HAs in China from 2019 to 2050 by Logistics model,the urban-rural disparity were also considered.Then,three means of distribution(Weibull,logistics and normal distribution)were used to model the survival pattern of different types of HAs.Subsequently,a metabolic model of in-use stocks of HAs based on material flow analysis was built to simulate the spatial and temporal distribution of HAs’ scrappage in China from 2019 to2050.Finally,the resource potential and economic value of discarded HAs is quantified,and the possibility of further establishing provincial recycling centers for discarded HAs is preliminary discussed.From 2019 to 2050,the in-use stock of HAs in China will endure a steady growth,reaching the peak in 2044 and stabilizing at 562 million in 2050.Among which HAs from urban families accounted for 77.61%-85.8%.In terms of regional distribution,similar to the trend in economic development,the in-use stock of HAs in the eastern,central,western and northeastern regions shows a trend of decline,and the gap of in-use stock in the eastern region is relatively significant.The prediction shows that the total number of discarded HAs in China will reach the peak in2050,with 76.74 million units per year,and the accumulative scrappage during 2019-2050 will reach1.76 billion units.Due to the gap between population and family ownership of HAs,the number of discarded HAs in urban areas will account for about 85% of the total scrappage in the coming 30 years.NEAs,however,accounts for about 25% of the total scrappage.In terms of the spatial distribution of discarded HAs in China,residents in eastern region will obsolete the most HAs,while the scale of discarded HAs in central and western region will roughly be tied for second,and the northeast region will be in the last place,which is similar to the trend in regional in-use stock of HAs.In 2050,the number of discarded HAs in the eastern region will be 33.56 million units per year,almost the sum of the central and western regions.The analysis of resource potential shows the great potential of automobile recycling in China.If effectively recycled,the accumulative generation of common metal and non-metal resources during 2019-2050 will reach 1.86-2.69 billion tons(bt),while precious metals(PMs),rare earth elements(REEs)and critical metals(CMs)will reach the amount of 4.6-12.2 kt,1.06-1.55 Mt and11-29.6 Mt,respectively,which will finally generate an economic value of 1.14-2.38 billion yuan.The recycle of common metals,CMs,rubber and plastics accounts for about 88% of the total value,while the contribution of NEAs to the economic value is about 45%.Until 2030,the accumulated resources of rubber,copper,lithium,nickel,REEs,gold,iron,aluminum will gradually reach the production value in china or global mineral metal production value in 2019.Until 2045,cobalt,plastic,palladium,glass and silver resources will exceed the global or china’s production value in 2019.In addition,scrappage at city level is estimated according to the population and GDP,then data of scrappage and linear distance were considered to select the site of recycling centers of HAs,the result shows that 18 recycling centers will be located in non-provincial cities.According to the temporal-spatial distribution of discarded HAs in China,two types of provinces should pay attention to the upgrade of capacity of automobile recycling.One is provinces with large number of discarded HAs like Guangdong,Shandong,Jiangsu.etc.The other is provinces with high growth rate,such as Anhui,Guangxi,Gansu,Heilongjiang,Xizang,Hubei,Hunan.etc.which will see 8-13 times increase of discarded HAs in 2050 than 2019.Finally,suggestions on recycling technology innovation and complement of power battery recycling market were put forward to ease the resource constraint in China.