A comparative life cycle energy and green house emissions of natural and artificial stone-manufacturing phase

Abstract

The natural stone industry in many countries plays an essential role in its cultural heritage, history and economy. However, the stone industry consumes large amounts of energy in the production phase. The total energy in the natural stone production is a collective summation of energy levels consumed in each phase of production, starting from stone quarries or from mixture preparation to finally produce natural or artificial stone as an end product. The study aims at evaluating the total embodied energy of the stone industry in Palestine to further conduct a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for both energy levels consumed in the manufacturing of natural and artificial stone. Personal interviews, observations, and stone quarry sites and workshops visits were used to collect data in Hebron – south of the West Bank. The results have shown a more sustainable production of artificial stone over natural stone in terms of energy consumption; and the (GHG) emissions accordingly as the amounts of energy for natural and artificial stone manufacturing were 120 MJ/m2 and 70.71 MJ/m2 respectively. As a conclusion, the study proves that natural stone (limestone) manufacturing produces more (GHG) emissions than the locally made artificial stone manufacturing in the study context under the studied circumstances. The environmental impact can be decreased through locating the workshops near the quarries and the sourcing points of raw materials. In addition, this can be obtained by depending on electrical vehicles and using green energy sources.