Abstract
The Chinese cement industry produced 2150 million metric tons of cement in 2014, accounting for 58.1% of the world’s total. This industry has a hugely destructive effect on the environment owing to its pollution. The environmental impact of cement manufacturing is a major concern for China. Although researchers have attempted to estimate impacts using life cycle assessment approaches, it lacks the ability to provide a holistic evaluation of the impacts on the environment. Emergy analysis, through ecological accounting, offers environmental decision making using elaborate book keeping. In spite of the high environmental impact of the cement industry, there has only been a handful of research work done to compute the unit emergy values (UEVs) of cement manufacturing in China. A thorough study of existing UEVs of cement manufacturing in China showed pitfalls that may lead to inaccurate estimations if used in emergy analysis. There is a strong need for a new, updated UEV for cement manufacturing in China, particularly reflecting both the dry and wet raw materials in the manufacturing process. This paper develops a methodology to calculate the nonrenewable resources used in cement manufacturing, particularly using mainstream cement production line. Our systematic approach-based UEV estimates of cement manufacturing in China using the quota method are 2.56 × 1012 sej/kg (wet material) and 2.46 × 1012 sej/kg (dry material). Emergy indicators such as environmental loading ratios which were calculated at 2390 (wet material) and 2300 (dry material); emergy yield ratios at 15.7 and 15.8; and emergy sustainability indices at 0.0066 and 0.0069 for dry and wet materials used in cement manufacturing, respectively; these show the immense impact on the environment in China.
Highlights
0.0066 and 0.0069 for dry and wet materials used in cement manufacturing, respectively; these show the immense impact on the environment in China
Cátia et al (2019) assessed the environmental influence of the prefabricated concrete elements for buildings based on the life cycle assessments (LCAs) method [1]; Marcella et al (2020) discussed whole building LCAs and the associated environmental impacts [2]; Mohammad et al (2019) used the LCA approach to estimate the environmental impacts of conventional construction approaches [3]; Yang et al (2019) carried out the LCA method to evaluate the building construction sector in China to calculate the energy consumption
In spite of the high resource input and the high pollution emission of the cement industry, there is only a handful of research work done to compute the unit emergy values (UEVs) of cement manufacturing in China; they are: Wei et al (2016) [26], who studied the life cycle emergy assessment of China’s cement industry and Xiao et al (2017) [27], who conducted a sustainable assessment of China’s cement industry in 2010 based on emergy, and the results show that the proportion of fossil fuels is enormous, and such consumption cannot be sustained
Summary
Urban Building Energy, Sensing, Controls, Big Data Analysis and Visualization (UrbSys) Laboratory, M.E. Key Laboratory of Urban and Architectural Heritage Conservation, Ministry of Education, Nanjing 210096, China
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