Genice K. Grande-Acosta

Energy transition in the electricity sector is central to limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. Countries around the world rely on official planning documents, such as strategies, special programs, and action plans, to guide these efforts. However, there are few systematic approaches and tools that can help policy makers determine comprehensiveness, coherence, consistency, and coordination when designing these planning documents. This represents a risk to meet energy transition and climate change goals if the relationships of policies and actions included in these documents are not addressed properly. To this end, this paper proposes an approach to model hierarchical relationships using the theory of change, while causal relationships are allocated using policy makers’ experience (yet can also be exogenously allocated using other models). As a case study, this work investigates Mexico’s energy transition policy of the electricity sector over the 2013–2018 period. The results show that Mexico’s official planning documents lack a good design since most policies and actions are not articulated in the right sequence and privilege clean centralized and distributed generation and energy efficiency, while others related to the modernization of electrical grids and climate and environmental policies are barely included.

In 2021, Mexico produced approximately 24.2 million tons of white corn, generating 3.6 million tons of corn cob residue. The final disposal of corn cob poses an environmental challenge in certain regions. This study examines the technical–economic feasibility and the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential of integrating a small-scale cogenerating gasifier fueled by corn cob into a nixtamalized corn flour manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprise (SME). This integration enables the generation of heat and electricity from the produced synthesis gas. Moreover, the process yields residual carbon, which can be used as biochar for soil restoration and removing atmospheric CO₂. This option holds significance for the corn flour agroindustry in Mexico, as, in 2021, it consumed approximately 601.9 GWh of electrical energy and 938,279 GJ of thermal energy from LP Gas in its manufacturing processes to produce 2.6 million tons of nixtamalized white corn flour. These processes contributed to a total emission of 410,232 tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere. The findings of this study demonstrate a cumulative reduction of 51.7% in CO₂ emissions, resulting in economic benefits of USD 85,401 in 2017 for a case study SME that annually produces 1039 tons of corn flour. This study reveals the integration of a gasifier–cogenerator system fueled by corn cob as an economically viable low-carbon technology in the corn flour manufacturing industry.

Within domestic food cooking, burning firewood in three-stone fires (TSF) is a common practice by more than 16 million users in the Mexican tropical climate region (CR-TR). This article aims to evaluate the implementation of improved firewood cookstoves (ICS) to replace TSF in the CR-TR by constructing firewood consumption scenarios covering 2018–2050. The results show that in CR-TR, with the implementation of ICS, the consumption of 354.95 PJ of firewood, 36.6 Mt of CO_2e, 1.29 Mt of CO, and 163.78 kt of PM_2.5 can all be avoided. The most important reduction in firewood consumption, CO_2e emissions and CO and PM_2.5 pollutants, occurs in exclusive firewood users and mixed users who utilize firewood as the primary fuel source, both of whom are low socioeconomic level in rural areas. Furthermore, most paying-for-firewood users often show negative mitigation costs and a high 50% IRR, while all non-paying-for-firewood users have mitigation costs ranging from 7.74 to 41.23 USD/tCO_2e. At the end of the results section, we perform a sensitivity analysis of the relevant parameters, which complements this study. Therefore, implementing ICS will contribute to the solution of climate change, deforestation, and facilitate the formulation of sustainable development policies for the most vulnerable population sector of the Mexican CR-TR.

Firewood is a solid biofuel that is widely used for cooking in Mexico’s residential sector. This study seeks to identify relevant factors in firewood consumption patterns, and their implications for climate change, gender, and health, and for energy poverty in Mexico, by climate region and socioeconomic level. For this purpose, a statistical analysis was conducted of recently published official information. We estimate that a total of 31.3 million Mexicans—26% of the total population—use firewood, and we have identified three main types of users: (i) exclusive firewood users (30%); (ii) mixed firewood users using firewood as their primary fuel (18%) and (iii) mixed firewood users using firewood as their secondary fuel source (52%). Total consumption of firewood was estimated at 116.6 PJ, while estimated greenhouse gas emissions were 8.1 million tCO_2e. Out of all the households studied, 53% were in the tropical climate region; 59% were categorized as being in the “low” socioeconomic level; and 75% were in population centers comprising fewer than 2500 inhabitants. Some 68% of households do not pay for the acquisition of firewood, and for those households that do pay for the resource, estimated transactions total USD 286.9 million. Expenditures on firewood for energy represent up to 10% of household income. Finally, it was estimated that 15.7 million direct users of firewood are women who use the resource in three-stone fires, in which they expose themselves to health risks in doing so. In conclusion, main universal findings, the study’s limitations, and future research are presented.

Motivated by the environmentally driven energy transition we live in, the valorization of biomass residues from the agro-industry as renewable energy can play an essential role in GHG emissions mitigation. To overcome the debate on the production and use of solid biofuels (SBF), in this study, we apply an integrated multicriteria tool for the assessment of the sustainability use of agro-industrial residues (AIR) as solid biofuels. Mexico has a vast AIR production, but frequently, the AIR are considered waste biomass. Still, when valorized, SBF do not have adverse effects on soil quality, are not responsible for biodiversity loss, and compete against food production as first-generation SBF. Nevertheless, the AIR present other environmental, social, and economic impacts that have not been adequately evaluated; therefore, we identified the need for a sustainability assessment of energy systems based on the use of SBF–AIR as input fuels. After reviewing previous work on sustainability assessment methodologies, multicriteria decision analysis methods, and indicator weighting methods, we considered it appropriate for this problem to apply a tool that integrates the entropic indicator weighting method into the discrete multicriteria decision analysis method called PROMETHEE. In terms of selected sustainability indicators, this tool was used to assess four electric energy supply systems of a Mexican sugar mill as a case study: current bagasse cogeneration, efficient bagasse cogeneration, a power generation system fueled only with fuel oil, and grid electricity only. Finally, after evaluating the mentioned energy systems with four sustainability indicators: GHG emissions, PM emissions, employments per energy unit (JOBS), and the net present value (NPV) of each alternative, we found the net outranking flow of the efficient bagasse system (EBS). which is the most sustainable system because it has the highest outranking flow value from the four considered alternatives, since it has the lower GHG emissions, reducing the current bagasse GHG emissions by 55% and the PM emissions by 58%. The EBS also shows the highest NPV system due to surplus electricity sales, resulting in the most profitable energy system analyzed.

In Mexico, as in the rest of the world, the industry sector is frequently highly dependent on fossil fuels; in addition, energy transformation processes are not very efficient and scarcely oriented towards climate change mitigation. Given these facts, solid biofuels (SBFs) from agricultural and forestry residues from rural areas may represent an alternative that contributes to the decarbonization of the industrial sector, especially in Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). From an economic and climate change mitigation perspective, this study evaluates harnessing SBFs in SMEs related to lime, bricks, dairy products, craft beer, and artisanal mezcal (a well-known Mexican distilled alcoholic beverage), products mainly manufactured in rural areas of Mexico. For each of these SMEs, we constructed two energy consumption scenarios that span from 2018 to 2050. On the one hand, a baseline scenario (BS) that reflects the behaviour of historical energy consumption in Mexico and, on the other hand, an alternative scenario (AS) that proposes the use of SBFs with modern and efficient technologies and sustainable inputs of agricultural and forestry residues originated mainly from rural areas. According to our results, a comparison between the two scenarios reveals that two out of five SMEs industrial niches studied, appear with mitigation costs in the AS namely brick kilns, and limekilns SMEs that have mitigation costs of 9.99 and 19.74 USD/tCO_2e, respectively, primarily due to the high investment cost of the new MK2 kilns and the relatively high cost of pellets, respectively. Since these niches have high mitigation potentials (7.77 MtCO_2e for brick kilns and 2.83 MtCO_2e for limekilns), their implementation requires adequate incentives and financing. On the contrary, the dairy, craft beer, and mezcal SMEs niches have negative mitigation costs (−14.30, −10.68, −0.98) USD/tCO_2e, mainly due to the high savings in the cost of fossil fuels and their materialization, especially for the mezcal niche which has a mitigation potential of 2.97 MtCO_2e, requires only an adequate regulatory and normative framework. We conclude that using commercial SBFs (pellets, briquettes, and traditional firewood) in SMEs niches contribute to generating formal markets with adequate distribution channels, both for SBFs and sustainable residual biomass inputs (residual firewood, agave bagasse, and spent barley grain). This alternative scenario also promotes the creation of green jobs in agricultural and forestry areas, adding an economic value to residual biomass inputs not previously considered and contributing to the social development of rural areas.

The residential, commercial, and public sectors consume between 20% and 30% of final energy demand worldwide. Due to the intensive use of fossil fuels and conventional electricity, they also have an important participation in the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). Taking Mexico as a case study, this article develops an alternative scenario that considers that in these sectors, buildings can generate energy for self-consumption or to supply it to the power network—for which four solar energy options are analyzed. In addition, to manage and rationalize the energy demand of these buildings, eight energy efficiency measures are studied. These options were selected on the basis that they are technically and economically feasible to implement in buildings in Mexico. The results reveal that by 2030, in relation to the GHG trend scenario, this mitigation scenario reduces 23.5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO_2e) in the residential (19 MtCO_2e), commercial (2.6 MtCO_2e), and public services sectors (1.9 MtCO_2e), while by 2035 it reaches 45 MtCO_2e; which far exceed the avoided emissions goals established in Mexico’s nationally determined contributions (NDC) for 2030 (5 MtCO_2e) for the residential and commercial sectors. Therefore, it is possible to increase the ambition for mitigation in these sectors, as well as including the public sector, in a renewed Mexico’s NDC. This mitigation scenario generates a total economic benefit of $7.7 billion, which means that it does not generate an overall incremental cost, but requires an incremental investment of over $9 billion USD, which is a financing challenge to achieve this scenario.

This article analyzes the possibility of substantially reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) in the Mexican industrial sector by applying a Low-carbon (LC) scenario, through a period of 25 years, composed by a set of mitigation options that involve the use of energy efficiency, materials recycling, cogeneration and renewable energy. Results reveal that a GHG peak of 226 million tons of equivalent CO₂ could be reached by 2030 with a GHG reduction of 26.5%, compared to a Base scenario, demonstrating that the LC scenario could exceed Mexico’s Nationally Determined Contributions objective of reducing 19% of its industrial sector GHG by 2030. Additionally, GHG reduction of 47% could be achieved by 2035. Finally, the economic viability of the LC scenario was evaluated using a cost-benefit approach. As a result, economic benefits above $24,000 million dollars could be achieved due the energy savings generated are greater than costs to implement the mitigation options.

Considering that the world transport sector is the second largest contributor of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to energy use and the least decarbonized sector, it is highly recommended that all countries implement ambitious public policies to decarbonize this sector. In Mexico the transport sector generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, in 2014 it contributed with 31.3% of net emissions. Two original scenarios for the Mexican transport sector, a no-policy baseline scenario (BLS) and a low carbon scenario (LCS) were constructed. In the LCS were applied 21 GHG mitigation measures, which far exceeds the proposals for reducing transport sector GHG emissions that Mexico submitted in its National Determined Contributions (NDC). As a result, the proposed LCS describes a sector transformation path characterized by structural changes in freight and passenger mobility, new motor technologies for mobility, introduction of biofuels, price signals, transportation practices and regulations, as well as urban planning strategies, which altogether achieve an accumulated reduction of 3166 MtCO_2e in a 25 year period, producing a global net benefit of 240,772 MUSD and a GHG emissions’ reduction of 56% in 2035 in relation to the BLS.